Erin Clark, director of animal projects at the St. Louis Aquarium, made a special trip last week to pick up the aquarium’s first resident: Little Blue, the lobster. The rare blue American Lobster made a special appearance to the media—and a few lucky hotel guests—at the Grand Hall last Friday.
The St. Louis Aquarium, which is currently under construction at the historic Union Station and is expected to open before mid-December of 2019, didn’t have plans for a lobster display, but the aquarium’s curator, Aaron Sprowl, says when such a rare crustacean lands in your lap, you make room. He repurposed a shallow touch tank to temporarily house Little Blue—who was renamed Lord Stanley the Lobster.
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The lobster is bound to get special attention because of his connection to the St. Louis Blue’s first Stanley Cup win. Sprowl joked that it would be great to give him a little Stanley Cup for his tank, but they’re still sorting out the details. Normally exhibits are planned out a year in advance.
Here are five other things to know about the St. Louis Aquarium’s rarest creature, who joins more than 13,000 animals in a million gallons of water.
1. The lobster weight 1.5 pounds, measures 11 inches and is around 7 to 10 years old, and could easily live 40 to 60 years.
2. Sprowl said the unusual color makes this lobster stand out in the wild, making him an easy target. A lobster’s normal reddish-brown color actually helps them blend into their natural habitat because the color is hard to see in the ocean. Lobsters are normally reddish-brown or greenish-brown.
3. Only one in every 2 million lobsters are blue. Little Blue gets his shade from a genetic mutation.
4. The blue lobster was found in a shipment of seafood at Arnold’s Lobster and Clam Bar in Eastham, Massachusetts, during the Stanley Cup playoffs. After St. Louis won the cup, the restaurant’s owner, Nathan Nickerson, wanted to show that Bruins fans can be good sports by offering the lobster to St. Louis.
5. Sprowl said Little Blue won’t be on public display until the aquarium officially opens. “He’ll have his own tank because of his unique needs,” Sprowl said.
