Rare Lobster Saved From Death Row For Being Too Dang Beautiful

A big ol' mazel tov to Red Lobster, who recently welcomed a brand new beautiful lobster into the family. Meet "Freckles" the stunning calico lobster that made its way from the ocean to a restaurant in Manassas, Virginia:

This is a joyous (non-delicious) occasion, since calico lobsters are one of the rarest lobsters in the world; it's vibrant, magic-eye poster-ish shell only appears in about one in every 30 million lobsters. This makes Freckles even rarer than cotton candy lobsters (one-in-a million), and our old friend Clawde, a blue lobster who was found last year at an Ohio Red Lobster, who has nearly two million blue brothers and sisters under the sea. It has not yet been revealed if Claude has been informed of Freckles' discovery, and his representatives at the Akron Zoo—where Red Lobster chose to send him to live out his days—have yet to respond to my repeated calls, emails, tweets, and faxes.

Freckles may have been considered an ugly duckling when living in the briny deep (lobsters are notoriously judgy), but now, she is a star—a veritable supermodel in the crustacean firmament. It also means that for those of you wondering what a calico lobster tastes like, it will continue to remain a secret; Red Lobster has donated Freckles to the Virginia Living Museum lobster display, where she will hopefully live a long healthy life as she dazzles the masses with her breathtaking blotchy shell. All of the lobsters the company deemed too ugly to live can be enjoyed with peppercorn-seasoned sirloin steak every Wednesday for the low, low price of $19.99.

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