2 more rare orange lobsters rescued from seafood tanks at Long Island stores

Orange you glad they checked for more lobsters?

Less than a week after a rare, 1-in-30 million orange lobster was rescued from the seafood section of a Long Island grocery store, two more similarly colored crustaceans were found at other supermarkets nearby — and it’s believed all the lobsters are related.

The first orange sea creature to be found, aptly named Clementine, was discovered after her spectacular uniqueness was spotted at the Southampton Stop & Shop. Clementine became an instant celebrity at the store, and once Humane Long Island got word of the rarity, its executive director reached out to Stop & Shop management, who agreed to donate the rare lobster for rehabilitation and release to the wild. 

On Monday, two of Clementine’s sisters were found and freed as well, according to the animal welfare group, which got a flurry of calls about orange lobsters seen at the Stop & Shop in East Setauket and Northport Fish & Lobster.

Humane Long Island said that given none of the stores had ever gotten orange lobsters before, that the coloring mutation is hereditary, and that they arrived on Long Island at the same time, it is likely all three are related. All three may have been caught in the same area by same distributor.

The two newer lobsters found, named Tangerine and Navel, were released Monday in the same location that Clementine was released days earlier.

While the chance of finding an orange lobster is 1 in 30 million, rarer still is for one of them to be returned to the sea, according to Humane Long Island.