The Science Behind the Rare Blue Lobster

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Have you ever seen a blue lobster? They’re so rare most of us probably have not. It’s also unlikely any of us ever will. In the video above, a fisherman shows off an extraordinary sapphire-blue lobster. However, compared to ordinary lobsters, blue lobsters look very similar except for the color. So, what’s so special about the blue lobster? Are they really that rare? Why are they blue and where can they be found? Keep reading to find out more about this incredible catch.

The Beautiful Blue Lobster

The rare blue lobster in the video above is a type of American lobster, Homarus americanus. Other than the coloring, blue lobsters are exactly the same as other American lobsters. The American lobster lives along the Atlantic coast from Labrador in Canada down to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. However, they are more plentiful in the coastal waters of the Northeast from Maine to New Jersey.

Lobsters can be found on the ocean floor in both deep and shallow waters. They prefer rocky areas or hard mud where they can burrow during the day. Lobsters are nocturnal and come out at night to hunt for prey such as crabs, clams, mussels, sea urchins, and small fish. Blue lobsters can be cooked and eaten just as other lobsters can. In fact, blue lobsters turn red during the cooking process, just like other lobsters. There is no difference in the taste of the meat either.

What Makes The Lobsters Blue?

According to scientists, lobsters’ shell colors are determined by complex interactions between three layers of carotenoid pigments, which are naturally occurring pigments found in plants, algae, and bacteria. These carotenoid pigments bind with proteins such as astaxanthin, which causes reds and yellows, and crustacyanin, which causes blues. So, blue lobsters occur due to a genetic anomaly. That mutation causes an overproduction of crustacyanin, which leads to excess blue protein.

Diet can also affect existing shell coloration but to a much lesser extent. For example, carotenoids in some algae and shellfish may be a more vivid red or orange, which could have some effect on the shells of lobsters that have an excess of astaxanthin. In a typical lobster, the three layers of pigments combine to provide the lobster with a type of olive green and brown camouflage to keep it hidden on the bottom of the ocean.

How Rare Are Blue Lobsters?

According to the Akron Zoo, blue lobsters are extremely rare, occurring only once out of every two million lobsters. Of course, uniquely colored lobsters are more vulnerable to predators without the camouflage of their normal-colored counterparts, but scientists accounted for this issue. They focused instead on the genetic sequences responsible for shell coloration. Then they calculated the likelihood of the anomaly that creates different pigmentation to determine rarity.

Fortunately for the lobster, its rarity saved it from being cooked and eaten. In an interview with the lucky fisherman, he explained that he had to release this unique beauty back into the ocean in the hopes it would breed and create more blue lobsters.