WMTW-TV8 • August 4, 2025
A rare yellow-colored lobster was recently caught off a Maine island. Kaleb Dyer said he caught the yellow lobster, a hardshell male, off Vinalhaven and shared a video and photographs of the crustacean. According to the New England Aquarium, the odds of a naturally occurring yellow lobster are about 1 in 30 million. UNE marine sciences professor Markus Frederich has been working on noninvasive ways to extract genetic samples from lobsters to better understand the molecular basis for rare shell coloration. Frederich maintains a collection of strange-colored lobsters at the university's labs and has been documenting the progress of the offspring of an orange lobster named Peaches, who is housed at the university. According to Frederich and other scientists, commonly cited estimates such as 1 in 1 million for blue lobsters and 1 in 30 million for orange and yellow lobsters should not be treated as rock-solid figures.