Blue Lobsters

Two Canadian fishermen caught bright blue lobsters beating the one-in-two million odds not just once but twice.

10:52 31 May 2016

Two Canadian fishermen have been celebrating for catching bright two blue lobsters just three days apart off the coast of Nova Scotia. Among the region’s fishermen, it is traditionally considered to be a sign of good fortune.

 

But how rare are bright blue lobsters? The University of Maine Lobster Institute was once quoted for saying that the probability of having this colouring is one in two million. However, its executive director, Rob Bayer, admits they are merely a “guess.”

 

Based on a rough analysis, about 200 million lobsters are caught in the North Atlantic every year. If the one-in-two-million odds are correct, this means that 100 blue ones are caught up in a year on average.  

 

David Spiegelhalter, professor for the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University in the UK, said: "So for two to be caught three days apart, quite close to each other, does not seem at all surprising. I would imagine it happens most years."

 

Charlie Ellis, a researcher at the UK's National Lobster Hatchery, in Cornwall, said: "The American lobster is usually a sort of greeny-brown, so anything bright blue would look very odd to fishermen there,"

 

"But European lobsters tend to be a duller blue colour. The real sort of iridescent blue is still rare here, but the difference is that, to a European fisherman, it will seem less completely out of the ordinary than it would seem to a North American."