UPI – A rare blue lobster found in a supermarket tank was rescued by a New York aquarium after being spotted by a local family. Danielle Morales was shopping at Market 32 in Clifton Park with her sons, Parker, 4, and Zachary, 3, when the boys noticed something unusual in the lobster tank.
“Parker pointed and said, ‘Hey! That one is blue!’ and I thought, wow, that’s odd,” Morales told WRGB-TV. She snapped a picture and immediately contacted the Via Aquarium in Schenectady through Facebook.
After receiving confirmation from the aquarium, Morales approached the store staff and informed them that the aquarium would be calling to arrange for the lobster’s rescue.
The boys initially named the lobster Bluey, after a popular cartoon character, but renamed him Bandit after discovering the lobster was male.
The Via Aquarium collected Bandit, who is now in quarantine and will join the aquarium’s other lobsters in October. According to aquarium officials, Bandit’s unique blue colour may be related to his diet, rather than just a genetic mutation, which is known to cause rare lobster colourations such as blue, orange and white.
“We think it could be his diet,” said Cassidy Livingston from Via Aquarium. “Eating a lot of shrimp can sometimes result in colour changes.”
