BETHEL — “Freckles” won’t be tossed into anyone’s lobster pot.
The rare calico crustacean was discovered Saturday among the lobsters sold to a local sporting goods store that supplies seafood to local businesses and the community.
“It’s highly unusual in that it’s a calico lobster, but not the usual orange with black spots,” Sarah Lane of Bethel Bait Tackle & More said Wednesday afternoon. This lobster, one in 30 million, is average-sized with orange mottling.
Rather than sell it, the store owners decided to donate it to the Maine State Aquarium in West Boothbay Harbor, which doesn’t have any calico lobsters.
“We thought it was awesome and unique.” Lane said. “We want to donate it so other people can admire it. We named it Freckles.”
Lane and her fiancee, Jeremy Fredette, who grew up on the Maine coast, buy their lobster from the Pemaquid Lobster Co-Op in Pemaquid Harbor to sell to places including Sunday River Ski Resort, Gould Academy and The Bethel Inn.
Lane said they were jokingly told to sell the rare calico on eBay. But, after talking with Elaine Jones, spokeswoman for the Maine State Aquarium, Lane and Fredette decided to donate the lobster.
Calicoes come in varieties of black and yellow, said Morganne Price, museum aquarist. The discoloration pattern is a genetic defect.
“We’re always very thankful when anyone donates a lobster to us,” she said.
To put the rarity into perspective, Price said blue lobsters are one in two million, and a split-color lobster is one in about 50 million. Maine lobsters are usually dark bluish-green to greenish-brown.
Price said Freckles would be put into a wet lab to ensure that it’s eating right and not stressed from the drive before being displayed.
“Right now, we have some yellow lobsters but not any calicoes,” Price said. Yellow lobsters are one in about 50 million.
“If you boil these (oddly colored) lobsters, they will still turn red because that’s the only pigment they have that can survive the heat,” Price said. “But we don’t want to do that to this lobster. He’ll be safe here.”
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- A rare calico lobster, at top, shares a chest with a regular Maine lobster discovered Saturday in a crate sold to Bethel Bait Tackle & More owners Jeremy Fredette and his fiancee, Sarah Lane.
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