US fisherman finds bright orange lobster, a one-in-100 million catch

A Monday, July 6, 2015 photo shows a rare orange-brown split colored lobster that arrived recently at the Pine Point Fisherman’s Co-Op in Scarborough, Me. According to research by the Lobster Institute, the chances of finding a split colored lobster is one in 50 million. Only the albino lobster, one in 100 million, is rarer than the split-colored lobster, according to the institute. (Yoon S. Byun/Portland Press Herald via AP)

A lobsterman has caught a rare bright orange lobster, the second time he’s pulled an odd-colored crustacean from state waters.

Bill Coppersmith, of Maine, tells the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1MJXgxp ) he was out on the Gulf of Maine on Wednesday when he caught the orange lobster.

Robert Bayer, executive director of The Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, says the odds of catching an orange lobster are one in several million.

Coppersmith caught a white lobster in 1997; a one-in-100 million catch.

Coppersmith has named the orange lobster “Captain Eli,” after his 4-year-old grandson. It will be kept at the Fishermens Catch, a restaurant and seafood market in Raymond, for about a month and then released.

Advertisement

In a Monday, July 6, 2015 photo, Ted Hyatt, 12, of New Fairfield, Conn. handles a orange-brown split colored lobster at the Pine Point Fisherman’s Co-Op in Scarborough, Me. (Yoon S. Byun/Portland Press Herald via AP) 

Earlier this month, a one-in-50-million orange-brown split-colored lobster turned up in Maine.