When 13-year-old Kevin Thibodeau hauled his lobster traps in Georgetown’s Harmon’s Harbor recently, he had a pleasant surprise. Inside one of his traps was a rare calico lobster, which he describes as black and orange with bumps all over the shell.
“It was really bright,” said Kevin who is a fifth-generation lobsterman. “It has a ton of different-colored bumps all over, similar to warts.”
Kevin, who has been lobstering since the age of nine, said that one of the things he enjoys about lobstering is the suspense of not knowing what might end up in the traps. “I like guessing what might be in the traps,” said Kevin. “It could be anything. Once I caught a lobster with bluish legs. Another time I caught a really unique fish-a neon yellow sculpin. I’m told that sculpins are actually native to Europe. I think it came down a current.”
Dr. Robert Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute, confirmed this is not the first appearance of a calico lobster in Maine. “I hear reports of calico lobsters every year, and there are several on display in Portland right now. However, they obviously are rare. It’s not an everyday occurrence,” said Bayer.
In regards to the bumpy shell, Bayer said he has seen calico lobsters, with that type of design, which were found to have bacteria beneath the shell.
Bayer commented that several blue lobsters have also been caught in Maine this year, which are reportedly even more rare than calicos. He said that blue lobsters turn a pinkish color when cooked. He added that the most rare lobster he’s seen is the albino lobster, which is the only lobster that doesn’t turn a reddish color when cooked.
According to the article “Lobster Parts” on the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s website, a lobster’s shell is composed of three pigments-red, blue and yellow. The author of that article noted that live lobsters are greenish-black on top and orange below with accents of blue on the claw joints. The article states that when one of the pigments is missing at birth, the lobster may be red, blue, albino (white) or calico (dark with yellow spots). It states that blue lobsters occur once in every three to four million lobsters, and red lobsters occur once in every 10 million.
David Percy, another Maine lobsterman, caught a yellow lobster near Whaleback Island at the mouth of the Kennebec River in 2006. This past spring, a yellow lobster was reportedly found in a shipment of seafood in Hawaii, which is thought to have originated from Nova Scotia. One was also caught by Rhode Island lobsterman Denny Ingram in Narragansett Bay in July 2010.
Lobster biologist Carl Wilson, who has studied lobsters at the Maine Department of Marine Resources lab in Boothbay Harbor for the past 10 years, reported that he’s seen yellow, blue, orange, white and calico lobsters in Maine. He said there really are no solid statistics related to how often each of those occur, only estimates. He agreed that unusually-colored lobsters are rare enough that when they do show up, lobstermen take note. He added that some of those end up in the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay, which is open to the public and school groups at certain times during the year.
In regards to the destiny of the calico caught by Kevin, the lobster will soon be transported to the Georgetown Central School’s fourth grade saltwater observation tank located at Georgetown Central School where it will be on display until the end of the school year. Then it will be returned to the ocean.
Just like the calico, 13-year-old Kevin’s future plans involve the ocean, too. He currently attends Bath Middle School and hopes to attend college some day. However, he would like to always have a hand in lobstering. “I’d like to keep doing lobstering as kind of a backup thing,” said Kevin.