UNION SQUARE — A rare yellow lobster who turned up at a Union Square restaurant last month has found a permanent home on Long Island.
Miss Ruby, the yellow-hued, 1-in-30-million crustacean, is settling in at the Long Island Aquarium after receiving a “pardon” when she turned up in a delivery at Burger & Lobster in Union Square, according to Joe Yaiullo, the aquarium’s co-founder and curator.
Ruby moved to the aquarium on Thursday afternoon after spending a few weeks showing off for admirers in the front tank at Burger & Lobster, located at 39 W. 19th St.
The curious crustacean is settling in just fine in her new home, where she’s sharing a 2,400-gallon tank with an eel and some black sea bass, Yaiullo said.
“She had a bit of a slow start yesterday, but today she’s in there excavating and making her cave more to her liking, which is always a good sign,” he said.
Ruby turned up last month in a shipment to the Union Square restaurant from Nova Scotia, and received a pardon as soon as workers spotted her, according to Steven Costello, who at the time was the restaurant’s director of operations.
“We thought it would be nice to celebrate her a little bit, so we named her Ruby and plopped her in her own tank at the restaurant,” Costello told DNAinfo in August. “It was so cool when we discovered her, we had to enjoy her.”
Live lobsters typically have a brownish color, and only turn red when they’ve been cooked. But genetic mutations can cause unusual colors, such as blue lobsters, which are about 1 in 4 million, according to a report by Maine Lobster Institute. But Ruby is a far more rare breed: a yellow lobster such as herself are about a 1-in-30-million occurrence, according to the report.
