Ultra-rare Lobster Split in Two Colors Looks Almost Too Strange to Be Real

The Cape Cod catch reveals genetics drawing a line down one animal.

A lobster hauled from the cold waters off Cape Cod looked as if nature had pressed a ruler down its body and painted each side separately.

On April 16, lobstermen aboard the fishing vessel Timothy Michael found the animal in their catch: bright orange-red on one side, dark brown on the other, the split running cleanly from head to tail. Rather than sending it to market, Wellfleet Shellfish Company donated the three-pound crustacean to the Woods Hole Science Aquarium, where it will become a living exhibit of one of biology’s strangest tricks: a single animal carrying two genetic identities.

A Special Catch

The lobster came ashore in Eastham, Massachusetts, at Wellfleet Shellfish Company. Oddly colored lobsters sometimes turn up on New England docks, but this one stood apart.

Split-color lobsters are estimated to occur in roughly 1 in 50 million animals. Their bodies can look almost assembled from two separate lobsters, joined lengthwise into one creature. On this lobster, one half carries the dark tones that help American lobsters hide against the ocean floor. The other half glows with the orange-red shade most people associate with a cooked lobster.

The fishing company quickly decided the animal deserved a different fate.

“When something that rare comes across our docks, we see it as part of our role to share it with the broader community—Woods Hole Science Aquarium was the perfect fit for this lucky lobster,” Wellfleet Shellfish Company Chief Operating Officer Dan Brandt told Popular Science.

Founded in 1875 and operated by NOAA Fisheries, the Woods Hole Science Aquarium in Falmouth, Massachusetts, is the oldest public marine aquarium in the United States. The aquarium is now closed for renovations, so the lobster is under supervision in holding tanks at the nearby Marine Biological Laboratory.

Crustacean Chimera

The lobster’s split appearance comes from a phenomenon called chimerism.

×

Get smarter every day...

Stay ahead with ZME Science and subscribe.

Daily Newsletter
The science you need to know, every weekday.

Weekly Newsletter
A week in science, all in one place. Sends every Sunday.
No spam, ever. Unsubscribe anytime. Review our Privacy Policy.

Thank you! One more thing...

Please check your inbox and confirm your subscription.

Most animals grow from a single fertilized egg, so the cells in their bodies usually carry only one shared genetic blueprint. A chimera different contains cells with different genetic blueprints, almost as though two would-be individuals began to form and then merged into one body.

“Split-colorization occurs when two fertilized, unlaid eggs contact each other, causing one to absorb the other,” aquarium biologist Julia Studley told Popular Science. “This creates a lobster with two sets of genetic information, and the ability to store color pigments differently on either side of its shell.”

Those pigments build up in the lobster’s shell. One important pigment, astaxanthin, can appear through reds, yellows and blues. In ordinary lobsters, the layers combine into the mottled brown, greenish or bluish camouflage typical of the species.

But genes help decide how those pigments are stored and displayed. When mutations or early developmental quirks alter that process, lobsters can emerge blue, orange, calico, white or pastel “cotton candy.”

This lobster shows two pigment systems at once. One side followed one recipe. The other side followed another.

A Rare Survivor

Bright colors can make a lobster famous on land. In the ocean, they can make it an easy target.

A typical American lobster blends into the seafloor, where rocks, shadows and seaweed help hide it from predators. A lobster with an orange side loses some of that protection. That makes this Cape Cod animal’s size especially striking.

“Lobsters with unusual coloring often don’t have the camouflage to thrive for long, so the fact that this one reached over three pounds means it’s been through a lot,” Brandt added.

The animal survived many molts, the risky process in which lobsters shed their hard shells and grow new ones. After each molt, a lobster is soft and vulnerable. To reach more than three pounds while flashing orange on one side, this lobster had to escape danger again and again.

At the aquarium, it will be safe from predators and serve as a vivid lesson in genetics.

RelatedPosts

New DNA sequencing device could decode your genome for just $1000
Scientists Find “Masterkey” for Enhancing Pathogen Resistance in Crops
The Worm That Outsourced Locomotion to Its (Many) Butts
Roman fish salting workshops reveal two whale species lost from the Mediterranean

The Nameless One

The lobster has not yet been named.

Aquarium staff wants to learn more about its behavior first. They also have time to choose carefully: American lobsters can live for decades, and some may reach 100 years.

The Woods Hole Science Aquarium is expected to reopen after renovation in early 2027. When it does, the split-color lobster is expected to become one of the first animals returning to public display.

Until then, it is settling into its temporary home, exploring cave structures and eating fish.

“We hope visitors take away just how unique this animal is, and how amazing it is to see genetics at work in a very iconic local species,” Studley said.

For now, it explores its temporary home, navigating caves and feeding on fish—an unlikely survivor shaped by a rare genetic accident.

And perhaps one of the luckiest lobsters alive.