A rare yellowish orange lobster caught in Canada is on exhibit at the Museum of Oceanography in Nha Trang, the capital of Khanh Hoa Province in south-central Vietnam.

The exhibition opened on Thursday afternoon, amazing tourists who had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the unusual yellowish-orange lobster.

The museum received the lobster for research and exhibition purposes from Royal Seafood International Trading Company Limited in Ho Chi Minh City.

The company imported the rare crustacean from Canada earlier this month.

The lobster, which weighs about two kilograms and measures 55 centimeters long, is doing well in its tank. 

The water temperature inside the tank is maintained at 5-10 degrees Celsius in order to mimic the lobster’s natural habitat.

Yellowish orange lobsters are extremely rare, with a probability of one in 30 million, said Kieu Tan Vu, marketing manager at Royal Seafood.

“This lobster was on display at the company's seafood store in District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City, where a buyer previously offered VND150 million [US$6400] to buy it,” Vu said.

“We decided not to sell the crustacean because we already had plans to donate it to the Nha Trang Museum of Oceanography for research and display.”

In March, Royal Seafood gifted a 48-centimeter-long, 3.9-kilogram rare sapphire-blue lobster to the museum. 

The sapphire blue lobster had also been imported from Canada.  

According to Ho Son Lam, deputy head of marine biology technology at the museum's Institute of Oceanography, the scientific name for Canadian and American lobsters is Homarus gammarus.

Lobsters are typically dark blue to bluish green and are primarily found along the Atlantic coast and in North America. Lam said.

There are, however, yellow and orange lobsters due to genetic abnormalities.

Yellow-orange lobsters are difficult to find in the wild because their bright shells make them easy targets for predators.

“According to various studies, the yellow lobster is the consequence of a rare genetic mutation, whereas the orange lobster is the result of a lack of a protein that helps bind pigments," Lam said.

“The majority of orange lobsters are tricolored, with a mix of orange and black.

"However, these studies were conducted on a small scale because the lobsters are so rare in the wild.  

"This lobster is being kept for research and display. 

"If its orange-yellow color persists in the next shelling, that means the color is the result of a genetic mutation. 

"If the color changes, it is the result of the lobster adapting to its natural habitat."

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