36-year-old Luke Rand from Portland, Maine and his father captured the crustacean in the Gulf of Maine. Rand says a lobsterman can go his entire career without catching a blue lobster. (Video credit: Luke Rand)
Awash in shades of baby blue and lavender, a rare lobster is making quite the splash.
A lobster crew discovered the vibrant cotton candy-colored creature off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire and is giving it to the Seacoast Science Center in the Granite State.
“Cotton candy lobsters are approximately 1 in 100 million!” a representative at the science center told Fox News Digital via email.
The “cotton candy” lobster.
(Seacoast Science Center / FOX Weather)
The lobster will join two other lobsters of similar hues at the center.
The lobster belongs to a species known as the American lobster or Homarus americanus. Unlike the recently trapped cerulean crustacean, the color of American lobsters is typically either olive-green or greenish-brown, according to NOAA.
Coloration of a lobster’s shell is due to genetics and their diet, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. As far as the “cotton candy” lobster goes, it appears their coloration comes from a genetic anomaly, the Seacoast Science Center said.
The two other “cotton candy” lobsters at the Seacoast Science Center.
(Seacoast Science Center / FOX Weather)
The northwest Atlantic waters have produced other lobsters of stunning colors.
For example, a blue lobster was caught near the Gulf of Maine in 2022. The lobstermen who caught the animal said it would be donated for research or released back into the wild.