A lobster can live up to 50 years.
The deep blue sea is full of mysteries and undiscovered marine species and at times people accidentally catch a glimpse of rare creatures.
Something similar happened to Lars-Johan Larsson, a Portland resident, when he caught a rare blue lobster earlier this month.
While sharing a picture of the shiny blue lobster, Larsson, who goes by the Twitter handle @LarsJohanL, wrote, “This blue Lobster was caught off the coast of Portland yesterday and returned to the water to continue to grow. Blue lobsters are one in two million.”
His tweet soon went viral with over five lakh likes and over 40,000 retweets.
This blue Lobster was caught off the coast of Portland yesterday and returned to the water to continue to grow. Blue lobsters are one in two million. pic.twitter.com/6chTk7PoLP
— Lars-Johan Larsson (@LarsJohanL) July 3, 2022
I was “today years old” when I discovered blue lobsters
— CPark (@SnarkyParky) July 3, 2022
You know his friends are like, ‘oh boy, here comes Frank! Always gets caught and released because he’s blue. What a crock!’
— Mike josephs (@mike19922003) July 4, 2022
Caught a blue one in the summer of 1993 in the Long Island Sound. We donated it to an aquarium so it would live a veryyyyy long life. 🦞 . It was so beautiful to look at.
— Marty Immel III MS.ED X3 (@mimmel99) July 4, 2022
Oh my goodness have NEVER seen this😳😳😳..wonder what makes them blue,..instead of red😵💫
— Deborah 🕊 (@Villagee15Life) July 4, 2022
In Australia we have a similar blue freshwater crayfish that you can only find up in the rainforest here behind the Gold Coast called the Lamington Spiny Crayfish – always fun to spot one in the wild pic.twitter.com/8LjLHpfMIh
— Mathew Cowden (@MathewCowden) July 3, 2022
Over here in WA we get “electric blue” marron as well. They are a rare mutation that is being cultivated now in marron farms.
Marron are only found (natively) in a small part of the south-west of Western Australia. pic.twitter.com/nU2C1EqPoL
— Mike (@Nemspy) July 4, 2022
I see your blue lobster—
1 in 2 millionand raise you iceberg lobster—
1 in 100 million 🧊🧊🧊 pic.twitter.com/FnAntHrbOo— D. Reggie Brown (@ReggBrown25) July 4, 2022
Commenting on the post, a Twitter user wrote, “I was “today years old” when I discovered blue lobsters”. Another person wrote, “Caught a blue one in the summer of 1993 in the Long Island Sound. We donated it to an aquarium so it would live a veryyyyy long life. . It was so beautiful to look at.”
Most lobsters are of muddied brown or dull red colour but according to the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, a blue lobster is very rare and the chances of finding one are one in two million. Blue lobsters get their rare colour due to a genetic defect which creates an abundance of a protein that creates blue colour on their shell.
Since blue lobsters are very rare, people often put them back into the sea so that their population is not endangered.