100-Year-Old Lobster Gets Reprieve: Museum Tank Instead of Boiling Pot

WORCESTER, Mass. — Seniority counts for something after all. A lobster estimated at 100 years old has gotten a limousine ride to a museum’s fish tank instead of being dunked into boiling water.

The lobster, which weighs 18 pounds and is about 30 inches long, was spotted at the Coral Seafood restaurant last week by a crew from a local cable TV station.

“The claw on this thing is the equivalent of four regular lobsters. It’s huge,” said Jerry Gibbs, news director for WGMC-TV.

George Voyiatzis, chef at Coral Seafood, said the restaurant purchased the lobster at a wholesale fish market in Boston recently in hopes of saving it from being eaten.

The restaurant was housing the crusty crustacean, caught off New England, until a permanent home could be found, he said.

So WGMC contacted the New England Science Center, and officials agreed to clear out a 400-gallon tank for the lobster.

On Thursday, tuxedo-clad waiters packed the lobster into an oversize beer cooler and hoisted it into a limousine for a ride to the center.

James Moran, a spokesman for the Worcester center, said the age of lobsters can be estimated because they gain about a pound every six years. Most lobsters served in restaurants weigh about a pound, he said.

“He’s definitely the biggest thing we’ve got around here--not counting the polar bears,” said Martha Flint, an administrator at the center.