Nature
PUBLISHED
There’s no shortage of stories of bizarre lobsters that have turned up in traps across the world. We’ve seen blue ones, yellow ones, “two toned” ones, and even calico (spotted yellow and black) ones. But this one, caught recently in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, really tops the chart for freaky-looking crustaceans.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.As you can see, the lobster has a double claw on one side that looks scarily like something out of the Alien movie. Repetition of body parts is not uncommon in segmented animals, which are animals that are constructed of a linear series of repeating parts, such as all arthropods. Each part, or segment, has a set of regulatory genes which determine which appendages grow on that part. Abnormalities, such as an extra claw, occur when there is a signaling error from the regulatory genes.
[Via The Coastguard]
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