A routine lobster delivery to Saybrook Seafood earlier this month led Elizabeth Staplin on a surprise adventure that brought her to both the Mystic Aquarium’s education programming and her own family history.

Staplin, who currently lives in Moodus, said the company owned by her family received a calico lobster from its vendor on Jan. 9. Calico lobsters are very rare, with their signature spotted patterns occuring in about 1 in 30 million lobsters; by comparison, blue lobsters occur in about 1 in 5 million.

She said the lobster was named Robert, in honor of Capt. Robert Staplin, a fisherman out of Stonington who caught a similarly patterned lobster in 1890 that made the news.

According to the 1890 article, the lobster had “yellow and red spots of the brightest hue all over its body. The lobster was viewed by men who have been engaged in the capture of lobsters their entire life, but none had ever before seen anything similar.”

Robert the lobster, weighing in at 1.5 pounds just like the 1890 catch, is currently in quarantine at the aquarium before starting a new job as an educational animal. Robert will travel around as part of the aquarium’s outreach programming to teach students about marine life.