Just how rare is a rare-colored lobster? Scientists say answer could be under the shell

BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — Orange, blue, calico, two-toned and ... cotton-candy colored?

Those are all the hues of lobsters that have showed up in fishers' traps, supermarket seafood tanks and scientists' laboratories over the last year. The funky-colored crustaceans inspire headlines that trumpet their rarity, with particularly uncommon baby blue-tinted critters described by some as "cotton-candy colored" often estimated at 1 in 100 million.

A recent wave of these curious colored lobsters in Maine, New York, Colorado and beyond has scientists asking just how atypical the discolored arthropods really are. As is often the case in science, it's complicated.

Lobsters' color can vary due to genetic and dietary differences, and estimates about how rare certain colors are should be taken with a grain of salt, said Andrew Goode, lead administrative scientist for the American Lobster Settlement Index at the University of Maine. There is also no definitive source on the occurrence of lobster coloration abnormalities, scientists said.

“Anecdotally, they don't taste any different either,” Goode said.

In the wild, lobsters typically have a mottled brown appearance, and they turn an orange-red color after they are boiled for eating. Lobsters can have color abnormalities due to mutation of genes that affect the proteins that bind to their shell pigments, Goode said.

The best available estimates about lobster coloration abnormalities are based on data from fisheries sources, said marine sciences professor Markus Frederich of the University of New England in Maine. However, he said, “no one really tracks them.”

Frederich and other scientists said that commonly cited estimates such as 1 in 1 million for blue lobsters and 1 in 30 million for orange lobsters should not be treated as rock-solid figures. However, he and his students are working to change that.

Frederich is working on noninvasive ways to extract genetic samples from lobsters to try to better understand the molecular basis for rare shell coloration. Frederich maintains a collection of strange-colored lobsters at the university's labs and has been documenting the progress of the offspring of an orange lobster named Peaches who is housed at the university.

Peaches had thousands of offspring this year, which is typical for lobsters. About half were orange, which is not, Frederich said. Of the baby lobsters that survived, a slight majority were regular colored ones, Frederich said.

Studying the DNA of atypically colored lobsters will give scientists a better understanding of their underlying genetics, Frederich said.

“Lobsters are those iconic animals here in Maine, and I find them beautiful. Especially when you see those rare ones, which are just looking spectacular. And then the scientist in me simply says I want to know how that works. What's the mechanism?” Frederich said.

He does eat lobster but “never any of those colorful ones,” he said.

One of Frederich's lobsters, Tamarind, is the typical color on one side and orange on the other. That is because two lobster eggs fused and grew as one animal, Frederich said. He said that's thought to be as rare as 1 in 50 million.

Rare lobsters have been in the news lately, with an orange lobster turning up in a Long Island, New York, Stop & Shop last month, and another appearing in a shipment being delivered to a Red Lobster in Colorado in July.

The odd-looking lobsters will likely continue to come to shore because of the size of the U.S. lobster fishery, said Richard Wahle, a longtime University of Maine lobster researcher who is now retired. U.S. fishers have brought more than 90 million pounds (40,820 metric tons) of lobster to the docks in every year since 2009 after only previously reaching that volume twice, according to federal records that go back to 1950.

“In an annual catch consisting of hundreds of millions of lobster, it shouldn’t be surprising that we see a few of the weird ones every year, even if they are 1 in a million or 1 in 30 million,” Wahle said.

Marine sciences professor Markus Frederich holds Tamarind, a two-toned lobster he is studying at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The tail of a calico lobster is inspected the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Thousands of eggs are attached o the underside of a lobster in a marine science lab at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A baby lobster is seen in a jar at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A calico lobster is seen in a marine sciences lab at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Blue and two-toned lobsters are seen in a marine sciences lab at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A blue lobster is seen in a marine sciences lab at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

A two-toned lobster is seen in a marine sciences lab at the University of New England, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Biddeford, Maine. The rare color scheme is the result of two eggs fusing together to create a one-in-50 million lobster.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

LA PORTE, Texas (AP) — A massive pipeline fire in suburban Houston was shooting a giant plume of fire into the air for more than two hours on Monday as first-responders evacuated a surrounding neighborhood where some homes have caught fire.

The fire began at 9:55 a.m. with an explosion that rattled nearby homes in Deer Park and La Porte, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of downtown Houston, long the energy capital of the U.S.

“All of a sudden we hear this loud bang and then I see something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,” said Geselle Melina Guerra, 25, a La Porte resident. She and her boyfriend live in a mobile home within the evacuation area. They were having breakfast when they heard the explosion close to 9:30 a.m. Guerra’s boyfriend, Jairo Sanchez, 26, woke up his brother and they ran to their car.

“I was just freaking out, pacing around the living room, not really knowing what to do or what was happening. I thought maybe it was an airplane that had crashed down by our house,” Guerra said.

La Porte city spokesperson Lee Woodward told KTRK-TV that they don’t yet know what flows through the pipeline or how it will be shut down. People in nearby schools were told to shelter in place as law enforcement blocked off a wide area.

It wasn't immediately clear what companies operate the infrastructure involved. At least one gas transmission pipeline and one hazardous liquid pipeline run through the area on fire, according to U.S. Department of Transportation geographic data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Another gas transmission pipeline cuts diagonally through a nearby residential neighborhood along Spencer Highway, which runs through the suburbs of Deer Park and La Porte.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Houston is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries, plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight to residents in Texas’ largest city, including some that have been deadly. The blasts have raised recurring questions about the adequacy of the industry’s plans to protect the public and the impacts of environmental damage.

Video images from KTRK showed a park near the fire had been damaged and firefighters pouring water on adjacent homes. By noon, at least a couple of homes appeared to have caught fire, with smoke pouring from their roofs. There are also several businesses nearby, including a Walmart.

Sanchez said they’re used to evacuations because they live close to other plants near the highway. But in the 10 years Sanchez has lived there, he had not witnessed an explosion.

“We just drove as far as we could because we didn’t know what was happening,” Sanchez said from a parked car at a gas station near his college.

Officials have ordered residents in the Brookglen neighborhood area near the fire to evacuate, Woodward said in an email.

“Please avoid the area and follow law enforcement direction. Further details will be released as available,” Woodward said.

There are several high voltage power lines near the fire. The website PowerOutage.us said several thousand customers were without power in Harris County.

CenterPoint Energy said it is monitoring the fire, which is near Spencer Highway in LaPorte. The company said the fire “is unrelated to the company’s natural gas operations or equipment.”

“We are also cooperating with first responders. Putting safety first, the public should avoid this area until further notice from local emergency officials. When it is safe to do so, our electric crews will go into the area to assess the damage to our transmission and distribution power lines, poles and equipment and begin restoring service to impacted customers as safely and quickly as possible.”

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AP reporter Christopher L. Keller contributed to this report from Albuquerque, New Mexico

A pipeline fire in La Porte, Texas, sparks grass fires and burns power poles on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, forcing people in the surrounding neighborhood to evacuate. (KTRK via AP)