Divers searching for the remains of a 1700s shipwreck around Drake’s Island in Plymouth Sound found themselves releasing a rare blue lobster.
Archaeologist Mallory Hass, director of non-profit organisation The Ships Project, was busy diving when a pot fisherman stopped by their dive boat and chatted to their skipper, giving him a vibrant female blue lobster for them to release back into the wild – thankfully, he had realised that this colour is not the norm.
Apparently, blue lobster are one-in-two-million, and this lucky lady – estimated to be around 50 years old – has been put back on the seabed away from divers and lobster pots.
Mallory said: “We put her back in a place divers don’t go, and where there is no fishing, so she can have an extremely happy and long life – they can live up to 100 years.”
The crustacean’s colourful pigmentation is caused by a genetic abnormality, which causes the over-production of a protein.
Photo credit: The Ships Project
