Split-Colored Lobster:
Last week, a lobsterman off the coast of Massachusetts found a split-colored black and orange, one-pound lobster in one of his traps. The unusual color pattern happens once in every 50 to 100 million lobsters, according to the New England Aquarium in Boston where the lobster now calls home. The orange coloring is from a lack of blue pigment and the half-and-half pattern is suspected to be the result of a cellular split during the lobster's embryonic development, just after fertilization, when only half of its body obtained the genes to code for blue pigmentation. Many times with split-colored lobsters they become hermaphrodites, showing sexual characteristics of both genders, but this one is a female.
