A Red Lobster employee found a rare blue lobster. Instead of cooking it, the restaurant sent it to an Ohio zoo
Category: Wine & Food
Via: buzz-of-the-orient • 4 years ago • 11 commentsBy: By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Red Lobster employee found a rare blue lobster. Instead of cooking it, the restaurant sent it to an Ohio zoo
A rare blue lobster has received a reprieve after a restaurant sent it to an Ohio zoo for conservation instead of consumption.
© Akron Zoo/Facebook The Akron Zoo landed a rare find recently, adopting a blue lobster from a nearby Red Lobster after restaurant employees recognized the rarity of the blue shell.
An Akron Zoo Facebook post on Sunday said a Red Lobster employee who found a blue lobster in a delivery to the Cuyahoga Falls eatery recognized just how rare the creatures are.
About 1 of every 2 million lobsters is blue, according to the zoo. The blue shell is due to a genetic anomaly.
Red Lobster staff named the blue lobster Clawde after the restaurant's mascot and contacted the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which then reached out to the zoo.
"Our animal care staff was able to quickly spring into action and prepare a new home for him," the zoo said on Facebook.
"Clawde is acclimating to his new home here at the Akron Zoo, in a special tank that has been dubbed 'Clawde's Man Cave' by his care team."
The zoo said Clawde is housed in their Komodo Kingdom building, which is currently closed to the public because of the coronvirus pandemic.
And while this discovery is very rare, it's far from the first time a colored lobster has been discovered.
In May 2019, a Massachusetts restaurant found blue lobster in its shipment and sent it to a local aquarium. A few months later, a fisherman in Maine caught a rare cotton-candy colored lobster not once, but twice. And just a month later, another fisherman in the area caught a two-toned red and black lobster -- a one-in-50-million find.
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© Akron Zoo/Facebook An Akron Zoo staff member picks up the lobster from the Red Lobster restaurant.
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© Akron Zoo/Facebook Clawde has a new home at Akron Zoo.
I wonder if it tastes different?
Hey, that's not kosher! LOL!
LOL. You directed that comment to a person whose mother used to cook bacon on paper plates in the microwave oven.
Well, that was a gripping story.
Going to have to clamp down on posting them.
Nope they don't taste different . the color is a genetic anomoly , the weirdest one I have heard of , was one that was half blue and half normal and the color distinction was perfectly down the centerline lengthwise .
Saw a picture of that one, it was pretty unique
I'm glad they saved his life.
Now I'm hungry
When I was a kid I caught a 1/4 inch baby crayfish in a stream and it was brown just like normal and I kept it in our fish tank for years and it grew and shed it's shell many times but I guess because the tank water was so clean it lost all it's color it was white like cartilage. Everyone though it was some exotic species from a pet store but it was just a common crayfish.
1/4 inch? Did it put up much of a fight?
Not much ! When I was a kid I caught hundreds of larger crayfish but only a few small ones just because they're so hard to see that they scoot away and you can't find them again.