50 million bi-color hermaphrodite lobsters have one

USA An extremely rare lobster found in Maine has a unique bicolored body with opposite sexes.

Bowie's lobster has attracted a lot of attention on social media. Photo: Jacob Knowles

Jacob Knowles, a lobster fisherman in Maine, shared photos of the bizarre half-blue, half-orange-brown lobster on Instagram in mid-November. The lobster, named Bowie, is also of opposite sexes, according to the Mail. Bowie exhibits gynandromorphy, meaning he has both male and female reproductive organs. This type of mutation occurs in the earliest stages of embryonic development, when an animal's cells first divide inside an egg.

Knowles knew Bowie was a hermaphrodite because of the small swimmerets at the base of his tail. The male's swimmerets are rigid, but the female's are more flexible and covered with tiny hairs that hold eggs during spawning. Hermaphrodites have been observed in fossil crustaceans, including lobsters, dating back 70 million years and seem to have arisen through genetic error.

Some crustaceans can possess complete male and female reproductive organs or change from one sex to the other during their lifetime. Lobsters, however, are not among them. Male and female lobsters have distinct body features. In addition to swimming legs, females also have a broader tail, which they use to hold their clutch of eggs. Because they are crustaceans, scientists suspect they are prone to becoming hermaphrodites early in their development.

In a 2012 study, scientists speculated that endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the environment from human pollution could be making intersex lobsters more common. According to data from the University of Maine at Orono, the phenomenon occurs in about one in 50 million lobsters. Knowles kept Bowie in a cage in the harbor, but after last week's storm, he decided to donate him to scientists at the Bar Harbor Aquarium in Maine, where he would be safer.

An Khang (According to Mail )

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