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Are the barnacles feeding? Will the hermit crab switch shells yet again? Here you'll learn about all the exciting happenings at our Marine Life Touch Tank in Portsmouth and our Blue Ocean Discovery Center in Hampton Beach, NH!

Locations and Hours:
- Blue Ocean Discovery Center, 170 Ocean Boulevard, Hampton Beach, NH (just north of the Sea Shell stage). Open 10 AM-7 PM daily until early September, and weekends in the fall and spring. Like Us on Facebook

- Marine Life Touch Tank in Portsmouth, Isles of Shoals Steamship Company dock, 315 Market Street, Portsmouth, NH. Open Tuesday-Friday, 9 AM-12 PM until late August. Like Us on Facebook
We'd love to hear your questions and comments! Hope to see you soon!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Salisbury Now Has 3 Orange Lobsters

For anyone in MA or headed that way, you might want to stop at our Sea Life Discovery Center in Salisbury Beach. Rumor has it that the center is now home to 3 orange lobsters! The center is open Tue-Fri, 10-3 and Sat-Sun, 11-4 and is located at 25 Broadway, right next to Surfside 5 and right on Salisbury Beach.

2 comments:

KurtSF said...

Why orange? I hate to be the one to ask the question, but I thought that the natural color of a lobster was greenish and that the cooked color of lobster was orange or red? What is causing these lobsters to prematurely cook themselves??!!

Katherine Lanzer, Touch Tank Coordinator said...

Hi Kurt,

Good question! You are right - usually, live lobsters are a mottled green-brown-blue. It's believed these orange ones lack a certain pigment in their shells due to a genetic variation. They really do look half-cooked! But they're not, we swear - they're alive and well.
Orange lobsters are thought to be very rare (one in 30 million!) but there have been several found in traps along the coast of Maine and Canada this year. This sudden abundance could be blamed on genetics, or maybe nutrition - some have speculated what lobsters eat can contribute to their shell color.