It looked like a split decision in a lobster trap off Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
Lobster fisherman Robert Wagner says he had never seen anything like Oscar, a half-blue, half-orange lobster split down the middle from head to tail, in 40 years on the water.
“I said, ‘Wow! I’ve never seen that like that in my life,'” Wagner said. “It was quite interesting.”
Wagner caught the lobster a few months ago in the second-last trap hauled aboard from waters near Blue Rocks. He named him Oscar because he felt as lucky as an Academy Award winner, and he wanted others to see him too.
After Wagner’s daughter suggested contacting Dalhousie University, Oscar was taken in by Dalhousie’s Beaty Centre for Marine Biodiversity.
Nadia Stewart, visitor experience facilitator for the centre, said the offer may have saved the lobster’s life.
“We’re so happy that they think of us when they do find a cool lobster cause in the wild they often get predated upon very quickly just because of their standout colours,” she said.
Stewart said Oscar’s mutation occurs in about one out of every 50 million lobster.
“When two of these fertilized unlaid eggs come in contact with each other, it actually causes one to absorb the other, so this creates Oscar, our lobster with two different sets of … genetic information,” she said.
Stewart said the only thing rarer than Oscar’s colouring is an albino lobster, found in about one out of 100 million lobster.
Wagner and his family cared for Oscar for a month before he was moved to Halifax. Wagner kept him in a crate in the water near his boat and fed him every second day. He said a special licence was needed to transport Oscar.
Stewart said Oscar has settled into his new home, but staff were surprised when he shed his shell a few days ago.
She said the centre put Oscar’s old blue-orange shell on display and took him off display so he could recover from moulting. He is expected to return once his new shell hardens, which Stewart said should take about 14 to 30 days.
Because Oscar’s colouration is genetic, Stewart said his new shell will also be blue and orange.
“We’re just grateful that it got in the right hands and hope [Oscar] has a good life,” Wagner said.
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