A rare orange lobster was rescued by restaurant staff

An incredibly rare orange lobster was saved from being cooked at a Florida restaurant. The lobster – now called Cheddar – was found by the restaurant’s cooks.

Lobsters are usually dark in color with hints of brown and red. However, Cheddar has a bright orange color. Lobsters usually only turn this color when they are cooked to be prepared as food, however Cheddar was very… alive.

Cheddar, originally intended for food, was saved by employees who immediately noticed the bright color of the lobster, according to a press release from the Red Lobster restaurant.

Employees called the aquarium Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach to see if they would get the incredibly rare creature. The aquarium came to pick up the lobster and named it after the restaurant’s “Cheddar Bay Biscuits,” the release said.

Orange lobsters, like this one, are extremely rare. THE Charlotte E. Davieshead of fisheries research at the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and an expert on marine ecosystems, told Newsweek that while it is difficult to determine without examining the lobster itself, “there are various theories” as to why some appear with different color variations.

“The leading theories could be a genetic mutation, causing a protein to be missing or added to the shell. The color of the lobster is determined by proteins in the lobster shell, or shell. Two of these proteins are astaxanthin, which when isolated, is orange-red, and crustacyanin, a complex that is blue.” she said. “However, when a lobster is cooked it will turn a red-orange color, regardless of its original color. This is because the heating process releases the proteins back to their original state. This particular lobster is missing one of these important proteins due to a genetic mutation, giving it a ‘cooked’ appearance.”».

Last year, Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada rescued an orange lobster from a grocery store. The lobster was discovered by visitors to the store, who had noticed the unusual-looking creature in the store’s aquarium. The Aquarium was called to pick up the lobster, which was affectionately named “Pinchy.”

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