Blue lobster

[snopes]

Comment: Hi there. Thought you might be interested in this. This is a blue lobster caught off the coast of Nova Scotia. The e-mail says Meteghan, but I've also seen this e-mail saying it was caught around Wedgeport. Both communities are in South-Western Nova Scotia. I think the "so cold he turned blue" thing is a joke. Original text of e-mail follows:

I was just sent these pictures from Meteghan. You don't see this very often, it
was so cold the poor thing turned blue.

[Morrigan]

Just a mutated version of the brown lobster. Fairly rare, though.

http://www.mysticaquarium.org/index.cgi/603

Very pretty!

Morrigan

[JoeBentley]

I can't vouch for the story with it, the pictures are probably legit.

The "blue lobster" is a rare but not unheard off mutation that occurs in some lobsters. Article Link

From Mystic Aquarium

A research study conducted at the University of Connecticut, discovered that a genetic defect causes a blue lobster to produce an excessive amount of protein. The protein, and a red caratenoid molecule known as astaxanthin, push together to form a blue complex known as crustacyanin, giving the lobster its unique blue color.

A Blue Lobster on Display at the National Audubon Society's Environmental Education Center



Yellow lobsters also exist, but are even rarer

As are Albino lobsters

And even "Half and Half" lobsters.

And last but not least a dual color, dual gendered lobster.

Blue Crayfish with the same mutation are available for the home aquarium market.

[Kallah]

Quote from the link:

One in a million of lobsters are blue ...

Are blue lobsters really that rare? I remember seeing several blue-green ones crawling around in a tank at a seafood restaurant (granted, it was about 15 years ago). When I asked my aunt why they weren’t red, she explained they only turned red when you cooked them. Have the pretty blue ones just been over-fished to the point they’re an anomaly now, rather than something that turned up occasionally?

[Morrigan]

Joe, you've been spanked by your second link.

Morrigan

[Eddylizard]

Unusual, but not unknown.

Gulf of Maine research institute

lobster is greenish-black on top and orange below, with accents of blue on the joints of its claws. That is because a lobster's shell is composed of three pigments: red, blue, and yellow.

When one or more of these pigments are missing at birth, a lobster may be red, blue, albino (white), or calico (dark with yellow spots). Blue lobsters occur once in every 3-4 million lobsters. Red lobsters (live ones) occur once in every 10 million. Except for albinos, all the color variations of lobsters turn red when they are cooked.

Piccy from Maine Department of Marine Resources

ETA Spanked heavily.

[inkrose115]

Shame it's so rare. If I had oodles of dough to waste I'd probably pay lots of cash to get some live ones. They're very pretty, and I wouldn't like anyone doing something silly like eating them. I imagine that albino lobsters would have a smaller chance of surviving in the wild.

[Kallah]

Ack, too late for me to edit, but I think I may have seen one of these (rather than the mutant ones) while it was still alive in the tank. More green than blue, but still really pretty. But is it tasty? I might have to test ...

[inkrose115]

Originally Posted by Kallah

Ack, too late for me to edit, but I think I may have seen one of these (rather than the mutant ones) while it was still alive in the tank. More green than blue, but still really pretty. But is it tasty? I might have to test ...

But they're so dazzlingly PRETTY!

[SatansHobbit]

Oddly, when I saw the OP, I thought "So What?" Until I read the links, I thought blue was a common colour for crustaceans in nature, partly because in this neck of the woods, two of our major species are blue.

The Blue Manna Crab: This crab is common in all our river mouths and estuaries. If any Perthite goes crabbing, this is what he'll bring back.

The Blue Marron.: I have a friend who farms these in the dams on his property. I remember one evening helping him feed them by tipping 44 gallon drums of pulped carrot into the water. Seeing hundreds of them all climbing over themselves to get to the food was quite spectacular.

Both turn red in the pot of boiling water, and take it from me, both turn very tasty.

[related anecdote] The Blue Marron is dazzling pretty, and an ex-girlfriend of mine who worked as a taxidermist for the museum thought it would be a good little earner to mount a few to sell for $80 a pop at the Freo market stall I was running at the time. So we saw my aforementioned friend, and got a dozen of the biggest and brightest marron, and she spent almost a fortnight cleaning, defleshing, wiring, posing, and mounting them on plinths.

The day she brought them in, she'd come to see me for a hand to carry them in, and left them in the back seat of the car in the sun for less than 15 minutes. In that time, they all turned the reddish cooked colour, which wouldn't have been too bad but she'd got little plaques engraved on each one reading "Blue Marron (Cherax tenuimanus)" and these were now red.

We eventually cut our losses by getting another museum worker to paint them, but they never looked as wonderful as nature made them in the first place. [/related anecdote]

In the late seventies or very early eighties, I saw a "What's wrong with this picture?" quiz that included a blue lobster. The answer key at the back tutted you if you chose it as a mistake.

[Xia]

I think the red lobsters are interesting as well... They look as if they've already been cooked!

[Sebbenth]

Originally Posted by Xia

I think the red lobsters are interesting as well... They look as if they've already been cooked!

From what I've read, lobsters will turn red while being alive if submerged in alcohol. I have never tried it, though.

[ganzfeld]

Originally Posted by Sebbenth

From what I've read, lobsters will turn red while being alive if submerged in alcohol. I have never tried it, though.

I saw this with large shrimp once but I don't remember a dramatic change in color such as you'd see when they are cooked.

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Sebbenth

From what I've read, lobsters will turn red while being alive if submerged in alcohol. I have never tried it, though.

Originally Posted by ganzfeld

I saw this with large shrimp once but I don't remember a dramatic change in color such as you'd see when they are cooked.

Alcohol won't change the colour, but if you set fire to it, the heat will do the trick. I once saw a TV program about old Swedish traditions concerning crayfish and one of the participants recapitulated an old practical joke where you did just this. The crayfish will turn red, but will also get dazed by the fumes and the heat so you can arrange them on a serving plate. When your unexpecting guests start picking around among them they will quicken again and start crawling around on the table. Very impressive, apparently.

[Broken Sword]

What color are blue lobsters when they're cooked?

[Brad from Georgia]

Ah, memories....

She wore blue.....lobsters,
Bluer than lobsters were her eyes,
Pinchier than claws were her thighs,
She was boiled.....

She wore a lobster I held tightly,
Feeling my hunger grow,
'Neath the pot the gas burned brightly,
I plucked one off and dropped it slow....ohhhh....

Blue lobsters....
On my plate there'll always be
Buttered and hot, my memory
Through the years,
I ate that big blue lobster
And drank some beers.....

Originally Posted by Broken Sword

What color are blue lobsters when they're cooked?

Red.

The red color comes from astaxanthin, a molecule that is related to beta-carotene (the lovely molecule that makes carrots orange). Astaxanthin is red on its own, that is. Normally in lobster shells, the astaxanthin is bound to a protein called crustacyanin, which can turn the color of astaxanthin blue (or other shades). Normal lobsters are a mix of all the possible astaxanthin colors, but for some reason these blue lobsters get too much of the blue form. But in any case, when you cook the lobster all the astaxanthin goes back to the red form.

Bee

It is very to think that the lovely blue lobster is a mutated version of the hideous brown lobster. I'm sure god didn't mean for it to be that way :-)