Sen. Angus King (🐮👑) celebrates after helping Maine net a lobster emoji

William Cummings | USA TODAY

A lobster emoji is coming and Maine's junior senator is boiling over with joy.

"Great news for Maine — we're getting a lobster emoji!!!" Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said on Twitter Wednesday after the Unicode Consortium unveiled its latest release of 157 new emojis and he saw the lobster had clawed its way into the group.

King buttered up Unicode, thanking the consortium for "recognizing the impact of this critical crustacean, in Maine and across the country."

King signed the tweet with cow (Angus) and crown (King) emojis.

Great news for Maine - we're getting a lobster emoji!!! Thanks to @unicode for recognizing the impact of this critical crustacean, in Maine and across the country.



Yours truly,



Senator 🐮👑 — Senator Angus King (@SenAngusKing) February 7, 2018

The Unicode Consortium launched in 1988 with a mission to create international standards for software and data. The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee determines which characters will become part of the official emoji lexicon, creating a uniform code that can be used across platforms.

More: Why emojis may be the best thing to happen to language in the digital age

Among the other emojis in the newest batch — scheduled for release in Jun 2018 — are a mosquito, a pirate flag, a woman superhero and a softball.

King, who has been known to sport a lobster tie on the Senate floor, had pushed the consortium to approve the emoji so that "people who fish, process, serve, eat, or otherwise admire the lobster can accurately express themselves in emoji form."

"A new lobster emoji would fill a necessary and unique void in the current Emoji List, and, should it be added, appears destined for significant usage by lobster fans around the world," King wrote in a September 2017 letter to the Unicode Consortium.

Lobster lovers like King had felt a pinch of resentment that their favorite crustacean was without representation. After all, the shrimp and crab already had emojis, as did other sea creatures like the squid, octopus, dolphin, shark and whale. More than 5,400 people signed an online petition calling for the addition of the lobster.

Since he lobbied for the emoji, the senator might have suggested it be dubbed "Lobster a la King," but critics would have likely called that shellfish.