Tuesday Crustie: You remind me of gold

The Waikiki Aquarium focuses on coral reefs of the Hawaiian islands, so I was a little surprised to see this big fellow featured:

This is an American lobster (Homarus americanus) from the Atlantic. It as on display because it has a very rare colour: a golden shade instead of the more normal dusky hue. (Remember, lobsters aren’t normally red unless they’re cooked.)

There are all sorts of interesting, rare colour variations in American lobster, no doubt noticed because we are so adept at pulling them up by the tens of thousands. The finding of a blue lobster named “Fluffy” made the news last week. And there are very interesting calico colours, lobsters with different colours on left and right, and probably more.