‘Weirdest lobster I’ve ever seen:’ Maine TikToker shares extremely rare two-toned lobster

A Maine lobsterman made an incredible catch this week, sharing one of the rarest lobsters ever on his popular TikTok account. 

Jacob Knowles, a fifth-generation lobster fisherman, has over 2.5 million followers on the popular platform, all of whom delighted in the catch of a lifetime: a two-toned, half-male, half-female lobster.

“This is the coolest lobster that I’ve ever seen,” Knowles shared on TikTok and Instagram. “Very interesting. You don’t see this very often at all.”

The two-sex lobster is scientifically known as a bilateral gynandromorph, where the sex is literally split down the middle. The male/female split can also be seen with the color with a distinct line down its back.

@jacob__knowles Craziest lobster ever! What do you want to do with it? Let me know in the comments! #maine #lobster #fishing #ocean #interesting #commercialfishing #fy #LobsterTok #educate #didyouknow #coolcatch #rare #rarefind ♬ original sound – Jacob Knowles

Knowles points to the upper swimmerets on the lobster’s underside, where a stiff swimmeret on the blue side indicates it’s male, whereas the red side lacks one, meaning female.

According to the New England Aquarium, the odds of finding a blue lobster in the wild are 1 in 2 million. Finding a two-toned, reddish-brown and blue lobster in the wild is about 1 in 50 million, according to the Seacoast Science Center in New Hampshire. Finding a half-male and half-female lobster is even rarer.

Knowles and his followers decided to keep the lobster in a cage as a pet and name it Bowie, after iconic singer David Bowie. 

“It is a good name. I did like ‘50 Per Cent’ a lot,” Knowles said. Other popular comments were “Leonardo da Pinchy” and “One in a Krillion,” which got over 50,000 likes on Instagram.