A rare “cotton candy” lobster caught in Maine and named “Haddie” is in need of a new aquatic home, a seafood company said.
It was a “1 in 100 million” chance for the baby blue, iridescent hued crustacean to be found, Get Maine Lobster, based in Portland, said in a Nov. 9 Facebook post.
Because of the creature’s rarity, the company is looking for an aquarium to adopt and preserve her as she is currently “hanging out” in the company’s tank at their wharf.
“We want to make sure she lives the rest of her life in safety and comfort since rare colored lobsters have a harder time surviving in the wild,” the company said.
She was caught over the weekend in a trap in Casco Bay by Maine lobsterman Bill Coppersmith, who’s been supplying Get Maine Lobster for a few years, company CEO Mark Murrell told McClatchy News in an emailed statement.
Coppersmith has never found a cotton candy lobster in his 40 years of fishing, Murrell noted.
“Billy immediately texted me about how I was going to especially enjoy ‘today’s’ (Friday, Nov. 5) catch and sent me a photo of the beautiful lobster,” he said.
Murrell shared a video of him holding Haddie, named by Coppersmith after his granddaughter, on the company’s website.
“This is a beautiful lobster and we want to preserve it,” he said at the end of the video.
Previously, Coppersmith had caught two rare lobsters. One was white and the other was yellow, Murrell said.
A lobster’s coloring is dependent on the pigment astaxanthin, which is naturally red and found in its shell, according to the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance.
“When it binds with certain proteins it can appear blue or yellow,” the organization explained on its website. “White lobsters are albinos and lack any pigments in their shells.”
The typical coloring of a lobster is “greenish blue to blackish brown,” hues that help it blend into its environment and guard against predators, the organization said.
“Standing out from the crowd is not in any animal’s best interests,” it added.
Murrell said he saved an orange-colored lobster before, named “Libbie,” in 2014 and worked with the Sea Coast Science Center in New Hampshire to rescue it.
In September, an “extremely rare” bright orange colored lobster was discovered by a restaurant in Arizona and donated to an aquarium.
The chance of finding the orange lobster was “one in 30 million.”
Get Maine Lobster wants any aquariums interested in adopting Haddie to reach out to them.
“We hope she can live the rest of her life in peace and safety with an aquarium soon,” Murrell said.
