In Rare-Colored Lobster News, Meet Banana, The Yellow Lobster

For whatever reason, people seem to be tickled by news about the discovery of funny-colored lobsters. I am one of them, because every time we find an interestingly colored lobster, it seems like it's always a brand new shade of the pinchy crustacean. Lobsters are just so cool.

Maine lobsterman Marley Babb, CNN reports, found a rare yellow lobster in his catch and contacted the Maine Department of Marine Research (DMR) to see if they were interested in giving the female lobster a new home. With some coordination, they found a new home for the lobster at the University of New England, and settled on the name Banana.

"After working Wednesday, Marley insisted on driving Banana all the way down from Tenant's Harbor to drop her off," Lindsay Forrette, M.S., lab coordinator and chemical hygiene officer in the School of Marine and Environmental Programs, told CNN. "Banana is about a pound to a pound and a half and is settling in nicely here at the MSC."

This is awesome. I like the idea of Banana looking around her new tank thinking about all the cool decorations she could put up on the walls, because I'm five years old.

The odds of catching a yellow lobster are one in 30 million (whoa). The yellow coloration comes from a pigment variation in the lobster's shell. You may have seen similar stories in the past, but it turns out rare lobster colors can come in not only yellow, but blue, orange, calico, and even cotton candy (a mixture of pink and blue). The rarest of them all is the albino lobster, which occurs only in one of 100 million lobsters. Great. I'm going to be searching for images of interesting lobsters all day, thanks to this story. Nice to meet you, Banana, and invite us over for your tankwarming party.