Six-clawed lobster caught off of Massachusetts coast

[Desire]

Rare six-claw lobster caught

September 10, 2013, 3:43 pm

A rare six-claw lobster will go on public display at an aquarium this week shortly after it was caught off the coast of Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Capt. Peter Brown and fisherman Richard Figueiredo noticed something was awry when they caught the nearly two-kilogram, ten-year-old crustacean on board lobster fishing vessel The Rachel Leah.

The lobster has one normal claw on it's right side but an Edward Scissorhand-like claw that splays into five finger-like pincers on it's left.

Lola's right side has a regular claw, whilst it's left side has a finger-like set of pincers. Photo: Maine State Aquarium

The men nicknamed the rare lobster 'Lola'.

“This claw deformity is a genetic mutation,” said Aimee Hayden-Roderiques of Maine State Aquarium.

“Sometimes they have this throughout their life, sometimes this happens during a regeneration from a damaged or lost claw.”

David Libby, a marine scientist with over 40 years of experience working with marine life, said the unique lobster was the first he had seen.

Lola's claws side by side. Photo: Maine State Aquarium

“Sometimes the genes will just get a little mixed and it will grow a funny claw, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Maine State Aquarium where the six-claw lobster will live also houses two other lobsters with similar deformities.

Marine biologists are unsure whether Lola's extra claws will be an advantage or a hinderance to it's survival amongst other marine life.

 

[Desire]

Meet Lola: The lobster with FIVE claws on one limb that looks exactly like a hand waving hello

• Lola was caught last week by fishermen who were featured on the show Lobster Wars
• The genetic freak will spend the rest of its days at the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor, where it will go on display next week

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER PUBLISHED: 22:35 GMT, 8 September 2013 | UPDATED: 00:06 GMT, 9 September 2013

A lobster with five claws on one limb that look like a human hand was caught last week off the coast of Massachusetts. The four-pound mutant was gifted to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor on Thursday after she was culled from the water by fishermen of the Rachel Leah, a boat featured on the series Lobster Wars. Lovingly dubbed Lola by the boat’s captain Peter Brown, the crustacean will now live out its days among other genetic freaks, like the aquarium’s rare blue lobster and bicolor lobster.

Rare beast: Meet Lola, possibly the first ever known lobster with a total of six claws. It was found off the coast of Hyannis, Massachusetts

‘We got a very interesting call from a man in Hyannis, Massachusetts,’ Aquarium manager Aimee Hayden-Roderiques told the Bangor Daily News. ‘He had offered it to one of the other aquariums in New England and they weren’t interested…we said yes! We specialize in special and odd lobster so we’d love to take it.’

Hayden-Roderiques said in her years working with odd lobsters, she’s never run in to one quite like Lola. ‘It’s very unusual to have deformities in the claws,’ she said. ‘But a deformity like this where it’s actually five different claws is definitely unusual and something I have never seen before.’

First? The five claws look surprisingly like a hand and though other multi-clawed specimens have been recorded, five claws may be a new record

New home: Dubbed Lola by the captain of the boat on which it was caught, the lobster was taken to the Maine State Aquarium, where Aimee Hayden-Roderiques said she'd never seen anything like it

Survivor: Hayden-Roderiques believes Lola is around 10 years old, so her deformity likely hasn't stood in the way of her survival

'We¿re not sure what will happen': Experts can't say whether Lola's mutant claw will survive her next molt

David Libby, a marine scientist at the state’s Department of Marine Resources has worked with marine animals for 40 years and hasn’t encountered the hand-like appendage before, either. ‘Sometimes the genes will just get a little mixed and it will grow a funny claw,’ he told the Bangor Daily News. ‘But I’ve never seen anything like this.’ Forty years on the job, he joked, ‘apparently is not long enough.’Despite her rarity, having a total of six claws doesn’t appear to be hurting the lobster, which Hayden-Roderiques and Libby believe is a full ten years old.

Good company: Lola the six-clawed lobster will join the aquarium's bicolor lobster and blue lobster (right) in the public display next week

Lola will join the aquarium’s other unique shellfish next week. ‘We’re kind of the place for unusual lobsters,’ said Hayden-Roderiques. ‘We think the colored ones are about one in a million, but there’s no way to know.’ The Maine State Aquarium is also home to an electric blue lobster, believed by many to be around 1-in-2 million and an ever more rare and breath-taking half orange, half blackish brown lobster. The bicolor specimen, which looks half-cooked, could be as rare as 1-in-50 million.

Second place? This four-clawed lobster, rare but not as uncommon as a five-clawed lobster like Lola, was caught in Maine in late 2012 by fisherman Zach Donnell

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[The_Hypocrite]

Could this genetic mutation be due to the radiation from the Fukushima reactor? more of such mutations will occur,,,

 

[Desire]

Could this genetic mutation be due to the radiation from the Fukushima reactor? more of such mutations will occur,,,

One-eyed cat has no nose

China Daily, September 2, 2013

A newborn cat in Neijiang, Sichuan Province was born with one eye in the middle of its forehead and no nose, Huaxi Metropolitan newspaper reported.

The cat died within a few hours of birth.

1 Comment(s)

anon2013-09-02 14:13

it must be a casualty of China's toxic waste environment.