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A 1 - in-100 - million " cotton - candy " lobster that exhibited vibrant pink , purple and bluish hues was trance by a lobsterman off the coast of New Hampshire in late July .
Joseph Krame , the 25 - yr - sometime who caught the specimen , donate his rare catch to the Seacoast Science Center in Rye , New Hampshire where the lobster , which is said to be " sizable and eating well , " can now be seen on public display , Karen Provazza , a stave member of the Seacoast Science Center , tell Live Science in an email .
The “cotton candy” lobster caught of New Hampshire is now living at the Seacoast Science Center.
Lobsters are typically a dappled brown color , which help camouflage them on the ocean floor . However , lobsters are also found in a variety of colors at lower frequence let in orange , blue , and eventwo - toned . The reason for this version is due to inherited mutations that change the chemistry of a pigment they ingest .
All lobsters take in a flushed paint , called astaxanthin , that comes from the plants and smaller crustaceans they eat . It ’s this paint that gives lobsters their outstanding red coloration after cooking , and also their natural mottled brown show .
The lobster exterior is made up of layers ; first the skin , adopt by two layers of casing . After ingestion , the reddened paint is stored in the skin layer . The paint then impress into the depleted shell , which appears blueish , due to interactions with proteins present in the shell that twists the pigment . Finally , when the pigment moves into the upper carapace the paint interacts with different proteins to produce a yellow hue .
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So when we see at a lobster , we are in fact look through each of these layers - a yellow , downhearted and reddish layer — and this gives the lobster a mottled brown coming into court . cook the lobster breaks down these proteins , return astaxanthin to its typical flushed color .
The variation in lobster coloration comes from genetic variation that change the room this pigment interact with proteins in the shell . blueish lobster take a variation that create more of the proteins in the lower shell layer , which pull out more of the red pigment from the hide into the shell layer . This variation is present in around one in 2 million lobsters .
" Cotton candy " lobsters are even rarer — go on at a frequency of about 1 - in-100 - million . The accurate genetic causes of this color is unnamed , but it ’s suppose that something disrupts the normal pigmentation process , allowing more of the red astaxanthin to be seen through the blue stratum . The consequence is " a potpourri of pink and purples on a blue backdrop resembling cotton plant confect , " Provazza sound out .
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In addition to the lobster ’s DNA , diet may also alter its colouring . The volume of color hues in lobsters with mutations that predispose certain colour variants will depend on their diet . For example , if the lobster is mostly feast on bait Pisces they would take in less astaxanthin , compared to a typical lobster diet of astaxanthin - ample pubic louse and runt .
So why are these lobster colouring material variants so rarified ? first , mutations underlying these variations will go on at a very small charge per unit . In addition , brightly - colored lobsters are less able to cover on the ocean trading floor , making them likelier to be preyed upon , thus lowering the betting odds of them surviving long enough to pass on their genes .
The cotton fiber candy lobster , guess to be between 8 and 10 years old , will spendthe rest of its daysat the Seacoast Center in New Hampshire , safe from predators and New England summer lobster bakes . It joinsanother cotton plant candy lobster caught in November 2021 .
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