Larry the lobster must have been a vision to behold. At 17 pounds, the 80-100 year-old crustacean was a popular attraction at The Dock restaurant in Connecticut last week before one Mr. Don MacKenzie purchased it and set it free in Long Island Sound.

“This lobster has seen World War I, World War II, seen the landing on the moon and the Red Sox win the World Series,” MacKenzie told The Day. While none of that is true, we can all probably agree: “He’s made it this far in life. He deserves to live.”

MacKenzie refuses to divulge what he spent on Larry, but insists “it was the most expensive lobster I never ate.”

Lobsters are thought to have negligible senescence, meaning they don’t become less functional or lose reproductive capability with age. They just grow very large. While it’s hard for scientists to judge individual lobsters’ ages, they believe ones who aren’t killed by predators, fisherman or disease may live past 100, and some believe indefinitely.

Larry was released in a special area of Long Island Sound where it’s impossible for fishermen to drop their nets. May he live another 80.

(The photo is not of Larry, but of another giant lobster, estimated to be 140 years-old)