Reprieve saves 100-year-old lobster from dinner table

SUNRISE, Fla. — A 15-pound lobster estimated at more than 100 years old will live out its days at an aquarium rather than as someone’s dinner.

Larry the lobster, named for the character on “SpongeBob SquarePants,” surfaced at Joe Melluso’s restaurant Tin Fish Monday. Melluso’s seafood supplier mentioned having a 15-pound lobster, according to the Miami Herald.

“You can pull in hundreds of thousands of pounds (of lobster) and never see a lobster this size,” Melluso said.

Melluso purchased the catch. He said he would consider selling it if someone was interesting in buying it, or else it would be someone's dinner Thursday, according to WPLG.

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A group of business owners came together to save Larry, according to the Miami Herald.

“If you’re going to live 110 years, you deserve to live and not be someone’s dinner,” Brooke Estren, one of the group members, told the Miami Herald.

It cost the group $300 to buy the lobster from Melluso and then ship it to Maine.

While the University of Maine Lobster Institute says there is no exact way to determine a lobster’s age Melluso used a theory that estimates about seven years for every pound.

At the restaurant, a group of hungry patrons who had hoped to eat the centenarian crustacean, devoured a 14-pound fish instead.

Larry is expected to live the rest of his days at the Maine State Aquarium.

"At first, when I heard there were organizations involved, I was like, 'Ah, that's so silly,'" Melluso told the Herald. "Then, I was like, 'They're looking to protect and serve the species in a responsible way. I should be thinking like that.' "

Cox Media Group