Cor-J Owner Wants To Find Aquarium For Rare Orange Lobster

James Coronesi, 75, has spent his life on the water, and, said the owner of Cor-J Seafood Market in Hampton Bays, “I’ve never seen one of these.” Despite a youthful stint on a lobster boat, last week was the first time he ever came across an orange lobster.

The vividly-colored decapod made its way all the way to Hampton Bays from the coast of Maine. It didn’t swim or crawl, or scuttle. It came from Carlson Seafood in Greenport, which transports thousands of pounds of lobsters every week, bringing them from Maine to Long Island.

The crustaceans are “floated in water” in crates to keep them wet. Sometimes, Mr. Coronesi explained, shippers will soak the invertebrates with salt water or will cover them with seaweed to keep them moist. They’ll die if they dry out.

The seafood shop owner, who’s been in business at the site for “25, 30 years” said the location’s prior inhabitant was Smitty’s Lobster House. “They sold lobster all summer long. It was nothing but lobster tanks.” Locally, however, lobstering has become a dying industry because of the warming of the water. Lobsters prefer it cool. Originally from Oyster Bay, Mr. Coronesi said there isn't a lobster left in the Long Island Sound.

The natural color of most American lobsters, a mottled greenish brown or blackish brown, is designed to hide them from predators. Lobsters of differing hues are known as “color morphs,” and can run the gamut from blue to purple to red, yellow, calico, an even split of red and black, and the most rare, completely white. Albino lobsters are also known as “ghost lobsters.”

Unlike their cousins, ghost lobsters don’t turn red when cooked.

The red pigment in lobster shells is called astaxanthin. While they're alive, this red pigment binds with other proteins to create other colors, but cooking breaks these proteins down, leaving only red, according to the website sciencealert.com.

Although news reports of rare finds have cited white lobsters as a one in a 100 million find, blue lobsters as a one in 2 million find, and orange lobsters, like the one at Cor-J, as a one in 30 million find, Dr. Richard Wahle, the director of the University of Maine Lobster Institute, said he hasn’t seen empirical studies that support the commonly reported statistics. Still, speaking of orange lobsters, he affirmed, “To be sure, they’re pretty rare.”

Mr. Coronesi said they hope to donate their orange lobster to an aquarium, but are still looking for a venue, as the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead declined to take it.

The seafood purveyor didn’t note whether the lobster is male or female. Dr. Wahle said a lobster’s sex can be determined by looking at the first set of “baby legs” or swimmerets near its tail. On male lobsters the appendages are stiff, on a female they are thin and feathery. The swimmerets play a reproductive function for the male, Dr. Wahle said.