PORTLAND, Maine — The Final Chapter
Maine lobsterman Jacob Knowles had a big decision to make about the "world's rarest lobster" named Bowie.
"The first few days in the tank Bowie was thriving. Seemed to be doing great. Rearranged all the sand in the tank. Was exploring, relaxing, eating," Knowles said. "Fast forward a few days, countless water tests and monitoring, I noticed Bowie was acting a little less active. Kind of docile."
The lobsterman contacted Ben Seggee at the Bar Harbor Oceanarium. Seggee tested the water in Bowie's tank only to discover nothing was wrong. The aquarist concluded that either Bowie was getting ready to shed his shell or just wasn't adapting to its new home.
"I decided that the best move was to release him back into the wild while he still had strength to make a recovery or shed if that's what he was trying to do," the lobsterman disclosed.
Knowles wanted to keep the half-blue, hermaphrodite lobster through the winter to see if it could reproduce by itself. He got assistance from the Oceanarium and Education Center in Bar Harbor to help set up a tank for Bowie to live in.
The rare crustacean was given to Knowles to share on his well-followed social media. He has 2.7 million followers on TikTok. One of his videos about a barnacled-covered lobster got more than 10 million views.
It was in a video posted on Wednesday that Knowles notched Bowie's tail to prevent it from being harvested in the future and returned the famous sea creature to the Gulf of Maine.
"Maybe with some luck, we will see Bowie the lobster again someday. Long live Bowie the lobster," Knowles wistfully said as the crustacean drifted down into the murky depths of the sea.
UPDATE 11/30/2023
On Tuesday, Maine lobsterman Jacob Knowles posted on social media that it was a race to save Bowie the Lobster as freshwater flooded the harbor where he was living. In the video, Knowles races out in a storm to get the crustacean from his cage. He says he only has 24 hours to figure out what to do with Bowie or he will die.
That's where the Oceanarium and Education Center in Bar Harbor came to the rescue. The education center told NEWS CENTER Maine it provided a tank, supplies, and education to Knowles to help keep Bowie alive. In a YouTube video, Knowles goes to the center where lead aquarist Ben Seggee shows him other rare lobsters.
"But when you start combining rare traits together and you get a blue, split, hermaphrodite lobster, the rarity of that scales exponentially," Segee explained.
"So Bowie is off the charts," Knowles affirmed.
The lobsterman and aquarist then proceed to Knowles' home, where they set up the tank and turn Bowie loose in his new home so the lobster can be monitored to see if it produces eggs by itself since it has both male and female anatomy. Stay tuned for any updates.
UPDATE 11/27/2023
At last check, Bowie the divided lobster was doing well in its new home created by Maine lobsterman Jacob Knowles. It seems Bowie has a new friend, even though that friend seems to have eaten all the food.
"Bowie has a little green crab friend," Knowles revealed. "Probably these little guys are what ate the pogie."
Knowles checked for eggs on the crustacean but didn't find any and ended the check-in with a gift of a herring.
In a previous video, the lobsterman said that he only wanted to keep the rare lobster for the winter to see if it would create eggs by itself, since it is half female and half male as well as half blue and half normal colored. He offered for Bowie the lobster to go live in an aquarium after its stay with him.
"We are looking for a more permanent home for it," Knowles said. "If you guys know of any aquariums or if any aquariums are watching this or science centers, we'd be happy to donate it at some point."
It was back in November that Knowles posted a TikTok video of the extremely rare crustacean. The lobster was given to him by a friend to share on social media.
"This is the coolest lobster I've ever seen," Knowles excitedly explained. "Not only is it split 50/50 right down its back. Blue and normal. But if you look underneath it's actually half male, half female. The blue side is a male. The normal side is a female."
The social media-savvy fisherman posted three videos of the lobster on Instagram and TikTok, where he's gotten around 8 million views and counting. Knowles regularly posts about what it's like to be a lobsterman and what he sees out on the water. He frequently gets millions of views.
According to Knowles, the lobster is legal to catch, but it was not notched to indicate it was female.
"We're not even sure if we notched it if it would protect it. Since it's not a male or a female. I don't know if the notch would apply to it. I would assume it does," the lobsterman remarked.
In the first video, Knowles asks his audience whether or not he should keep it or notch and release it. In a second video, Knowles reveals that he will keep the crustacean to see if it can reproduce with itself. He also asks viewers what to name it. Then in a third post, he reveals the name of the lobster and shows the construction of its cage. The 50/50 lobster is now named Bowie. After the rock star.
"The next step is to get this down to the harbor and get it in the water and get the lobster in its new home. We're gonna put some homey touches in the cage for it," Knowles said.
According to the Seacoast Science Center, the odds of catching a blue lobster are 1-in-2 million, while yellow and orange-and-black calico lobsters come in at 1-in-30 million. Split-colored varieties have been pegged at 1-in-50 million, and white, the rarest of all, are 1-in-100 million. The science center said this pattern is suspected to be the result of a cellular split during the crustacean's embryonic development.
This rare one-clawed orange lobster was caught in Casco Bay.