World’s Rarest Lobster Is Released Back Into the Ocean
Back in mid-November 2023, I stumbled across a video of a 5th generation lobster fisherman whose friend had given him a very unique lobster. The lobster was half orange and half blue in color split evenly down the middle, making it very rare. But what made it quite possibly the world's rarest lobster was the fact that it was also half male and half female. Crazy!
The fisherman, @Jacob Knowles, decided to keep the lobster as a pet instead of releasing him back into the ocean to see if it would be possible for it to reproduce on its own. He named it Bowie, and an oceanarium donated a lobster tank to him and helped Jacob get it all set up. Bowie did well for the first couple of days, but then, took a turn for the worst.
Finding Bowie in the first place was probably a long shot but keeping him alive as a pet was probably against the odds. Bowie either wasn't adjusting to his new home, or he may have been getting ready to shed. Either way, the best thing for Bowie was to put him back where he belonged: in the ocean. Jacob notched Bowie's tail telling other fisherman to leave him be. At this point now, we're all just hoping that somewhere down the road @Jacob might catch the lobster again so we can see how he's doing.
Related: Video of Extremely Rare Blue Lobster Caught by Maine Fisherman Is Going Viral
Millions of people, me included, were invested in this story. The first video about Bowie went immediately viral and got more than 9 million views, and this one over 5 million. Nearly 4 thousand comments were left about saying goodbye to Bowie. One commenter got nearly 31 thousand likes for sharing, "I think you made the right move. Thanks for sharing Bowie with us while you could!" @Syd spoke for all of us with, "I’m SO glad you didn’t let him die!!! Long live Bowie the lobster!!!"
Facts About Lobsters
We all know lobsters live on the ocean floor and that they have big claws, but how much else do you know about them? I decided to check out some lobster facts and found some cool facts at One Kind Planet. Things like lobster continue to grow their whole lives and can get up to 3 feet long, and the biggest lobster ever caught was more than 40 pounds! I mentioned that Bowie being two different colors was rare, and there's actually only a 1 in 50 million chance of that happening - probably more for Bowie since blue is considered a rare color, too. It is common for lobsters to be green, orange, and yellow. And the coolest fact of all is that lobsters live a long time...they can live 45-50 years!
I'm hoping that Jacob will come across Bowie again someday. It's not every day that we get to see and learn about such a unique animal!
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