I came in from work tonight and switched on the TV. BBC 2 was showing Nature’s Weirdest Events – some stuff about dolphins swimming with whales, cats raising ducks and hedgehogs, walking catfish, weird noises in the sky in Canada, and so on. But the part that really piqued my interest was the trailer for next week. It showed a lobster which was two different colours either side of a perfect line right down the middle of its body.
I just had to look that one up, and I came across this article. You’ll note how this lobster was caught in Felix Cove, Newfoundland and is a distinct blue one side, and reddish brown the other. It is classed as “extremely rare”. Other than explaining that it is a gynandromorph – both male and female – the article is only about 35 words long and not very informative.
To try and get more information, I found another article. This one was caught in Dyer’s Bay, Maine, and is black on one side, and orange on the other. The article says the odds of finding one are 50 million to 1. Maybe you can see where I’m going with this. A local oceanarium said it has only seen three such bi-coloured lobsters in 35 years. No mention is made of it being a gynandromorph – this time it is explained that each half of a lobster develops separately and this specimen is missing blue pigmentation on one side.
The two articles obviously referred to different lobsters (they’re different sizes), so I searched some more. I then found this one which was pulled up in Digby County, off Nova Scotia. It’s a similar colour to the second example, though not the same one if the locations, dates, and names are anything to go by. Nova Scotia isn’t that far from Maine in fishing terms.
Then there was this one – different date, similar colour – pulled up off the New England coast (of which Maine is part). In fact, there are loads of examples. There’s even a 1959 book/research paper which discusses the phenomenon.
So, not quite as rare or unusual as is suggested either by the BBC or some of the finders or article writers.