A rare calico lobster with mottled yellow-orange and black coloring turned up off the Massachusetts coast just before Halloween, and it couldn’t have picked a more fitting week to show off its costume. The crustacean was hauled in near Plum Island, and photos of it were shared by a local fish market owner.
Adam Fuller of David’s Fish Market in Salisbury posted the images, and according to WCVB, he said the coloring occurs in roughly one in 30 million lobsters. Fuller told the station it was the first calico lobster he had ever personally seen, a genuine rarity even for someone who works around seafood every day. As reported by WBAL News Radio, the lobster was caught off the Massachusetts coast before Halloween with its distinctive yellow-orange and black pattern intact.
A customer came into the shop and bought the lobster, and per the WCVB report, that buyer planned to return it to the ocean rather than keep it. The station’s account does not confirm whether that release actually happened, so the lobster’s current whereabouts remain unknown.
What Actually Makes a Lobster Look Like a Jack-O’-Lantern
Calico coloring does not make the animal a different species — it is still an American lobster, just wearing an unusual coat. Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center describes the calico or “freckled” pattern as the result of a pigment called astaxanthin binding to proteins other than the one that typically shades a lobster’s shell, likely because of a genetic anomaly. Those altered protein combinations change the way light bounces off the shell, producing the splotchy, multicolored look.
Genetics appear to be the main driver, though diet can play a supporting role. The Seacoast Science Center notes that diet can enhance the expression of pigments already present in the shell, even as genetics carry more of the weight. The center also pegs the odds of calico coloring at roughly one in 40 million, a figure that differs from the one-in-30-million estimate Fuller cited to WCVB — researchers simply haven’t settled on a single number given how rarely these lobsters turn up.
That rarity comes with a real cost in the wild. The same Seacoast Science Center research describes oddly colored lobsters as particularly vulnerable to predators, since their bright, patchy shells strip away the camouflage that ordinarily helps them blend into the seafloor.
Plenty of Company in New England’s Oddball Lobster Club
This is not Massachusetts’ first brush with a calico lobster, nor will it likely be the last. Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center previously took in a female calico named Jackie, caught off the Massachusetts coast by Gloucester lobsterman Mike Tufts, according to Northeastern University. Jackie’s shell showed orange with drizzles of black, touches of yellow, and even blue at her joints — a vivid reminder of just how many pigment combinations are possible. The Marine Science Center’s community programs, classroom programs, and field trips reach about 5,000 people a year, as reported by Popular Science.
New England has turned up its share of other color oddities over the years. A split-colored orange-and-black lobster was acquired by the New England Aquarium from a Salem fisherman shortly before Halloween back in 2013, per Boston.com, while a split-color lobster caught off Cape Cod — orange-red on one side and dark brown on the other — was donated to the Woods Hole Science Aquarium, according to the Cape Cod Times. A calico named Calvin was famously saved from the boiling pots at Summer Shack in 2012 by a waiter, and was at the New England Aquarium before traveling to the Biomes Marine Biology Center, according to the Daily Mail.
Elsewhere, a calico lobster caught off Winter Harbor, Maine, was spared the dinner menu after staff spotted its unusual coloring, NPR reported, and workers at a Virginia Red Lobster rescued a speckled lobster they named Freckles in spring 2021, according to Smithsonian Magazine. New Hampshire has produced its own extreme rarity too — a fisherman once caught a one-in-100-million cotton-candy-colored lobster off New Castle, Smithsonian Magazine noted. New England Aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse has said that reports of oddly colored lobsters typically spike in summer, per Boston.com, which makes a Halloween-season sighting near Plum Island feel a little extra out of season — and extra memorable for whoever gets to see it before it, hopefully, swims free.
