Freaky-ass mutant lobster caught in Maine.

<SLAPS Tuckerfan with a Wet Trout, deservedly>

If that’s the same one who’s picture appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine shortly after birth, yes, that’s an intersexed child. A true hermaphrodite in fact, very rare. The kid is actually a fusion of two embryos, one male and one female and thus a chimera as well as everything else. Haven’t seen the Discovery special myself, though now I’ll be looking for it to repeat.

Isn’t it a bit “interesting” that the color differentiation is a precise line down the center of the lobster? One would think that if it were a natural occurance that it would be more muted where the colors are different.

That is, a more gradual line of demarkation, instead of a stark exact line exactly in the middle. I’m a bit skeptical.

Piffle.

Bilateral symmetry explains that away nicely.

Which is??..

Bilateral symmetry – illustrated with a lobster, as it happens.

Here’s a datum to think about: Every tortoiseshell or calico cat I’ve owned, and many of the others I’ve observed over the years, showed a more or less clear demarcation of the colors along at least part of their topline. For example, check out this photo.

Ah, for “topline” substitute “plane of demarcation.”

:smack: