A dishwasher at a Red Lobster in Pueblo, Colorado, was unpacking a shipment of live lobsters when he discovered the bright orange crustacean now named Crush
A rare orange lobster discovered in a live crustacean shipment to a Colorado Red Lobster got a second chance at life thanks to the keen eye of one of the restaurant’s dishwashers.
On Wednesday, July 17, a dishwasher at the Red Lobster location in Pueblo, Colo., was unpacking a shipment of live lobsters for cooking when he spotted the bright orange crustacean, the Denver Downtown Aquarium said in a press release.
The employee then alerted the restaurant manager, who promptly began calling around to find a home for the rare lobster — but not before the Red Lobster employees got a chance to name the unique sea creature. The staff decided on Crush after the Denver Broncos’ first championship team, the Orange Crush.
After making a few calls, the Colorado Red Lobster found a home for Crush at Denver’s Downtown Aquarium.
“We are thrilled to be able to share this very rare and extraordinary animal with the community and visitors to Colorado,” Ryan Herman, general curator of the aquarium, said in the press release.
According to the aquarium, brightly-colored orange lobsters are extremely rare. Orange lobsters like Crush are estimated to occur once in every 30 million lobsters.”The lobster’s coloration is from a genetic mutation which affects and prevents encoded proteins. The lack of one or several proteins can manifest as different colors, including blue, yellow, and orange,” the Downtown Aquarium added.
Other rare lobster colors include blue, yellow, grey, and dusty orange. The crustaceans can also appear spotted or multi-colored, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
After arriving in Denver, Crush was placed in quarantine and is currently being monitored by a veterinarian. He is set to remain under observation for 30 days and will then be placed in the aquarium’s “Lurks” exhibit, where he’ll live with other cold-water North Atlantic Ocean species, the aquarium added.
