Meet UNE’s New Rare Yellow Lobster ‘Banana’ in Biddeford, Maine
Now here’s something you don't see every day. A yellow lobster!
And, of course, its name is Banana. Banana arrived last night at UNE’s Marine Science Center (MSC) on the Biddeford Campus.
Banana comes to UNE courtesy of Marley Babb, a lobsterman from Tenants Harbor who caught and kindly donated her to the MSC.
You're safe now, Banana!
According to our friends at UNE, Babb first contacted the Maine Department of Marine Resources. DMR’s Jessica Waller is working on a lobster research project with UNE’s Markus Frederich.
She contacted him and asked whether UNE might be interested in housing the lobster.
Every once in a while you'll see a blue or yellow lobster. But they are RARE. According to a press release from the New England Aquarium in 2017, wild lobsters with yellow shells are only 1 in about 30 million.
The University of New England is sharing an $860,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, and Hood College in Maryland to study the impact that the warming Gulf of Maine is having on lobster larvae and their success in growing to adulthood.
Banana will not only be quite the conversation piece around the lab but will also help in this important research.
Let's get this lobster on Twitter ASAP!