Insanely rare 'cotton candy' lobster caught in Maine | TheHill - The Hill

A Maine lobsterman made a 1 in 100 million discovery last week when he found a "cotton candy" lobster in Casco Bay. 

Bill Coppersmith, who works for Get Maine Lobster, came across the pink and blue pigmented lobster and initially thought it might be a toy, Boston.com reported. 

"We were just hauling — as I've done for the last 40 years — and we just came across some lobsters in some traps … and there was a strange color in the trap," Coppersmith said. 

"There's an amazing color of the shell. If you rotate her in the light it's like a gem," Mark Murrell, founder, CEO, and chief curator of Get Maine Lobster told the news outlet. "It's like if you were looking at a beautiful gem. Her shell is like the inside of an oyster — it's pearlish."

"I work with a couple hundred [lobstermen]," Murrell said. "But I don't know anybody directly who has ever caught a cotton."

The "cotton candy" lobster's unusual coloring might be due to the way a pigment called astaxanthin interacts with various proteins or the result of a genetic mutation, National Geographic notes. 

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Coppersmith, a 40-year industry veteran, named the 7-year-old female lobster Haddie, after his granddaughter. 

"I was excited about it too. It's not the first rare lobster that I caught, but it's not something that they catch on a yearly basis," Coppersmith said, noting that he caught an orange lobster a few years ago. He named the orange crustacean for his grandson, Eli. 

"I got three grandkids so I got to do one more rare lobster," Coppersmith said. "I gotta get another one for my grandson, Liam. I don't know, maybe purple this time?"

Get Maine Lobster kept Haddie in a tank while she awaited a new home, and she was adopted by SeaCoast Science Center on Nov. 10. 

"We are happy to have this unique lobster coming to Seacoast Science Center later this week," the center wrote on Twitter. "The lobster will need to acclimate to our tank system so will not be on public display right away - look for her in the coming weeks!"

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