Is the picture of the world's largest lobster from Puerto Rico real? Viral claim debunked
The internet has gone wild over the world's largest lobster. Internet users have come across many unique or unbelievably bizarre photographs during the golden age of AI-generated images. Some of these photos are real, but the majority were simply edited or AI-generated. What some claim to be the largest lobster in the world is the latest addition to the long list of bizarre viral images.
The image of the alleged world's largest lobster in a fishing boat alongside a bunch of fishermen is all over social media. However, the image can be assumed to be fake, as lobsters do not look like that. Also, the image contains small traces of AI generation and is not backed up by verifiable sources.
Nothing about the world's largest lobster sits right
The image of the crustacean went viral on multiple social media platforms. Ranging from comedy accounts to even science YouTube channels, most of which stated that it was, in fact, real. YouTube channel, ромашка gave a detailed description of the alleged crustacean. The channel reported:
"Puerto Rican fishermen from Gran Canaria have caught the world's largest lobster. Its weight is 150 kilograms, and the length, without whiskers, is 2 m 60 centimeters."The channel also added a comment from an American oceanographer, Teldor F. Gaskell, where he blamed the size of the crustacean on the warming of the ocean and uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. The oceanographer allegedly said:
"The warming of the ocean accelerates the metabolism of the inhabitants of the bottom layer due to the expression of genes responsible for gigantism." "A three hundred pound lobster is unusual, but far from the limit for a process set in motion by uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions," he added.However, the image can be assumed to be fake for a multitude of reasons. The most prominent one is that lobsters do not look like that, even if the obviously unnatural and impossible size is taken out of consideration. A normal American one looks like this:
The image also contains a few abnormalities. The clearly unnatural stoic look of the men, who seem to not belong in the background, raises an eyebrow. The man in the middle also looks like he is standing through the boat instead of on it or outside it.
On closer inspection, the hands of all three men come out as unnatural, a trademark flaw of AI-generated images. The guy in the middle has hands straight from GTA 3, and the person on the right has his hand and part of his body infused with the boat and the crustacean.
Neither the image nor the fake details provided for the image could be verified and fact-checked. The image was spread over numerous social media accounts without any astute backing. Such a discovery would have led the image to be shared by reputable sources and mainstream media, which in this case has not happened.
According to AZ Animals, the largest lobster ever caught weighs 44 pounds and 6 ounces, which is around 20 kilograms. That figure is nowhere near the numbers given in the picture. This famed crustacean, the real largest one, not the fake giant one, was over 100 years old and caught in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1977.
The existence of Teldor F. Gaskell, the alleged oceanographer who connected the crustacean to climate change, is also a mystery. No information regarding him exists, except, of course, this fake picture. It concludes that the man does not exist.
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