It’s a Monday so if you got through the day without having a complete breakdown on the subway there’s a chance that you feel pretty lucky. Maybe a barista gave you an extra shot of espresso without adding those extra pennies to the bill, maybe a cab arrived just before the sky opened up and all the unlucky people got rained on, or maybe you won a few bucks on a scratch ticket and won’t have to pay for your next round of brews. Those are all very fun, lucky things to be excited about.
But Eugene Richard, a fisherman in his mid-60’s who hails from New Brunswick, Canada caught one of the rarest animals in the world: the “ghost lobster.” It is estimated that ghost lobsters, an albino variation of the standard lobster, only appear in the lobster population once out of every 100 million animals. So while it isn’t quite as rare as the Plougshare Tortoise, of which there are less than 1,000 left on the entire Earth, it’s still a pretty rare find. And a very lucky catch for someone who has been lobstering for over 50 years and has never seen a specimen quite like this one.
It’s not to be confused with a blue lobster even though it does have a blue shell. The albino lobster actually has a clear shell, and the blue tint comes from the animal’s blood near the surface of the shell. Blue lobsters are much more common, although people shouldn’t feel any less cool if they catch a blue version. Any lobster that isn’t the trademark mottled brown color is pretty cool in our book.
Richard and his wife definitely embraced the awesome moment once they realized the lobster was real – they thought it was a fake rubber animal and nobody can really blame them. According to Global News Canada, Richard trotted right down to the shop and bought a lottery ticket to try and capitalize on his great luck. Although the lottery ticket didn’t pan out for him, the lobster now lives in the New Brunswick Aquarium for all to see. If somebody doesn’t believe his wonderful fishing luck he can just drag their disbelieving selves down to the tank and prove that his story is true.
(via Global News)
