Apparently Blue Lobsters Exist, Because Someone Just Caught One

Lobsters: they’re tasty, they’re red, and they don’t mind being boiled to death. Except, wait. They do mind being boiled, and they’re not always red. Feel like the world and all your assumptions about it is collapsing around you? Don’t worry, we feel that way too. (Hey, at least we can all say for certain that they’re tasty.)

The blue lobster of lore was caught off the Massachusetts coast by fisherman Wayne Nickerson on Monday and, according to his wife Jan, was “more brilliantly blue than the bluest hydrangea you’ve ever seen…It was almost fluorescent. It was almost glowing.”

According to Tony LaCasse, a spokesperson for the New England Aquarium, the lobster was a rare catch — as in, one in two million rare. Even more rare: the fact that the lobster, which the Nickersons named Bleu (we see what you did there!), weighed in at a whopping two pounds.

Apparently it’s not Nickerson’s first encounter with a blue lobster. Nickerson’s wife says he caught one back in 1990. Which basically means that this man needs to start buying lottery tickets or making sure he’s well sheltered during a storm, or something.

LaCasse does admit that blue lobster sightings are getting more and more common, due in part to the rise of social media and the ability to share such oddities, and in part to sheer odds: if the U.S. sees 100 million lobsters each year, there are bound to be 50 or so blue ones found. And the blue lobsters found in Massachusetts could all be due to one hydrangea-hued mother lobster somewhere nearby.

Meanwhile, the internet is having a heyday with Bleu. Twitter users are very excited, although many admit that they didn’t even know there was such a thing as a blue lobster:

https://twitter.com/SynergyCas/status/763808248868671488

https://twitter.com/Left_Turns/status/763805787617652736

Although one person is very skeptical:

On the pier, though, the chance to see a blue lobster live and in person was all the rage on Monday. Nickerson showed off his catch to a cheering group of children on a tour boat, which his wife said was the best part of the day. “It was so cute.”

(Via the Boston Globe)