Nova Scotia crustacean escapes lobster pot and finds new home in Montreal

This crustacean caught off the coast in Nova Scotia narrowly escaped the lobster pot after it was donated to the Montreal Biodome by a Quebec grocery store

MONTREAL - An enormous lobster caught off the coast of Nova Scotia has found a new home in Montreal.

The large crustacean narrowly escaped the lobster pot after it was donated to the Montreal Biodome by an IGA grocery store in Varennes, Quebec.

Dubbed "Goliath" by IGA employees, he weighs in at 7 kg (15 pounds), is 48 cm (19 inches) in length and is estimated to be between 35 and 50 years old. Experts say he's in good health.

 

After spending a few days in an isolation tank, the lobster was introduced into the rocky shore basin of the Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem of the Biodome on Thursday. 

He will remain there for two weeks, after which he will move to the main 2.5 million-litre seawater basin in the ecosystem.

 

The Biodome is a biodiversity centre that allows visitors to walk through replicas of four ecosystems found in the Americas. It currently has about 30 lobsters in its Gulf of St. Lawrence ecosystem.

The last big lobster to be donated to the institution was an 8 kg (17.6 pound) crustacean, which was given to the facility after a woman from Boston won it in a Super Bowl contest in 2008. It unfortunately died a few years ago.

About the new lobster The Biodome's newest crustacean is an American lobster (Homarus americanus) from the Northwest Atlantic.

Although an impressive specimen, it's actually smaller than the largest American lobster known to date, which weighed in at 20 kg (33 pounds) and measured almost 110 cm (43 inches) from the end of its tail to the tips of its claws.

Read it on Global News: Global Montreal | Nova Scotia crustacean escapes lobster pot and finds new home in Montreal