What colour should your lobster be?
Most would say that depends on whether the lobster is cooked or not. After being boiled alive in water, lobsters, as most people know, turn red from their usual shade of burgundy.
But fishermen in the Maritimes have been noticing something unusual, according to the CBC Maritimes.
Over the last two weeks, five unusually coloured lobsters have been caught. Three were blue coloured, one was yellow and the fifth was the rarest of all, an albino lobster.
Andrew Hebda, a zoologist with the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History, explains two to three uniquely-coloured lobsters are caught every year during an interview with CBC Maritime Noon.
And while these latest catches may seem unusually frequent, Hebda says they don’t necessarily represent a shift in the statistical odds of finding one.
“[The odds] basically indicate how many have been reported based on how many lobsters have been landed.
Basically what Hebda is saying that there’s not more weird coloured lobsters caught but with the move towards social media, it’s more likely that these unusual critters are being posted on Facebook and Twitter.
And here’s the science behind the different colours. It all boils down to genetic mutations in the lobster’s pigmentation.
Mix yellow, blue and red pigments and given enough genetic spread and volume, one may dominate over the other.
h/t: Gaston Martin Facebook via CBC News Brunswick
