A lobster seemingly destined for a restaurant diner’s gullet has made an improbable escape thanks to its distinguished coloring.
The rare blue lobster is now living the high life in an Ohio zoo after staff at a restaurant in the state noticed it wasn’t your average crustacean.
When the peculiar creature was delivered last week to a Red Lobster restaurant in Cuyahoga Falls its demise in a boiling pot appeared written in the stars.
However, an eagle-eyed employee noticed immediately that there was something different about this culinary specimen.
The marine animal was in fact a 1 in 2 million blue lobster, which has a uniquely colored shell due to a genetic anomaly.
“At first it looked like it was fake,” culinary manager Anthony Stein told NPR. “It’s definitely something marvelous to look at.”
The lobster, named Clawde, was sent to the Akron Zoo after restaurant staff contacted the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, which runs a conservation program called Seafood Watch.
Both the restaurant chain and the zoo are partners in the program, which tries to help consumers and businesses choose seafood that is farmed and fished in a sustainable way.
The Akron Zoo said in a Facebook post that Clawde was getting used to his new home there in a special tank dubbed “Clawde’s Man Cave.”
(Akron Zoo/Facebook)
Zoo staff told NPR that they hope to put Clawde on public display after the lobster gets fully acclimatized to its new environment and sheds and renews its shell.
However, Clawde may have to wait for an influx of admiring visitors as the zoo is currently closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.