A Rhode Island lobsterman named Denny Ingram recently hauled in an extremely unusual catch: A yellow lobster. The coloration of lobster shells is produced by the confluence of genes coding for red, yellow, and blue: When the genes for both red and blue aren’t functioning properly and only the yellow is expressed, we get the rare yellow lobster. According to the Providence Journal, the yellow coloration comes from a “gene carried by both parents that occurs in about one in 30 million lobsters.”
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Yellow lobsters aren’t exactly evolutionary favorites: According to a 2009 AP article, they’re at a disadvantage because their bright colors “make it easy for predators to spot them.”
