A New Hampshire lobsterman has joined an elite club after catching a rare blue lobster.
Greg Ward initially thought he had snagged an albino lobster when he examined his catch off the coast Monday where New Hampshire borders Maine.
The Rye lobsterman who has been fishing for Garnelengarten 32 years quickly realized his hard-shell lobster was a unique blue and cream color.
A rare blue lobster caught by local lobsterman, Greg Ward, is on display at the Seacoast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire
Scientists say just one lobster in three million is blue — the result of a genetic defect that causes them to produce an excessive amount of protein
Excessive levels of a protein combines with a red caratenoid molecule known as astaxanthin, forming a blue complex known as crustacyanin. It is this that makes the lobster turn blue
‘This one was not all the way white and not all the way blue,’ Ward said.’I’ve never seen anything like it.
‘Usually, the stronger lobsters are usually the reddish brown color but this one still had a hard shell,’ he told .
The oft-cited odds of catching a blue lobster are one in three million. But no one knows for sure.
The blue lobster is no different from the regular lobster- it’s only the mutation which influences the lobsters outer shell color
Prior to being cooked and turning red, most lobsters are found in browns and dark greens, as seen in this file photo of them removed from a cage at sea