Rare find arrives at local seafood store

FARMINGTON – One lobster certainly had that wow factor among a large bin of the crustaceans unloaded at Mosher’s Seafood ‘n More over the weekend.

It was a lobster like very few others with its neon-bright orange and black spotted shell among a sea of dozens of plain old dark green and brown ones caught off the mid-coast of Maine.

Lobsters with mottled orange and black coloring of the shell is known as a calico and is considered a rare find. The unusual coloring is thought to be found in only an estimated 1 in 30 million lobsters.

Mosher’s employee Tawnya Clough was surprised by the usual and beautiful find and offered it to the Maine State Aquarium in West Boothbay Harbor.

Clough was told they would welcome the calico for their exhibit of lobsters. Now, she is working on finding him a ride from Farmington to Boothbay.

According to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, while a blue-colored lobster is estimated to be found in 1 for every 2 million lobsters, calicos are a much rarer find with odds of only 1 in 30 million of finding one.

Rarer than a calico is a split-colored lobster, which is half red and half brown and found in about 1 in 50 million lobsters. The rarest of all? A lobster without any shell pigmentation, called an albino or crystal lobster, is found in an estimated 1 in 100 million.