A lobster caught in Maine is drawing attention online for a couple of unusual attributes — it’s half red and half blue, as well as half male and half female.
Jacob Knowles said the lobster was brought to him by a friend and fellow lobsterman, and he dubbed the crustacean Bowie in honor of musician David Bowie’s famously androgynous style and mismatched eye colors.
“I was very blown away by it,” Knowles told NPR.
He said the lobster is an extremely rare find.
“Nobody I’ve talked to in the harbor has ever seen one like this either,” he said. “So, that speaks pretty loudly.”
New England Aquarium biologist Jordan Baker said only about 1 in 50 million lobsters share Bowie’s bicolored appearance.
“There are these embryo mutations or changes in that ontogenetic development,” Baker said. “The combination of embryos or division that basically make two different animals.”
Knowles said Bowie is currently being kept in a cage in the ocean.
Baker said she is hoping the lobsterman will consider donating Bowie to the aquarium, which is already home to multiple lobsters of unusual colors.
“A lot of lobstermen in our area, in Maine and the rest of New England have been really generous when they find these rarities and offer them to us,” she said.
