PORTLAND, Maine — July 23, 2012 — When a 100-pound shipment of lobsters arrived at Bill Sarro's seafood shop and restaurant last month, it contained a surprise — six orange crustaceans that have been said to be a 1-in-10-million oddity.
"My butcher was unloading them and said, 'Oh, my gosh, boss, they sent us cooked, dead lobsters,' " said Sarro, owner of Fresh Catch Seafood in Mansfield, Mass. "He then picked one up, and it crawled up his arm."
Reports of odd-colored lobsters used to be rare in the lobster fishing grounds of New England and Atlantic Canada. Normal lobsters are a mottled greenish-brown.
But in recent years, accounts of blue, orange, yellow, calico, white and even split lobsters — one color on one side, another on the other — have jumped. It's common to hear several stories a month of a lobsterman bringing a quirky crustacean to shore.
It's anybody's guess why more oddities are popping up in lobster traps, said Michael Tlusty, research director at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
It's likely more weird lobsters are being caught because the overall harvest has soared. In Maine, the catch has grown fourfold in the past 20 years, to nearly 105 million pounds last year.
Read the full story by the Associated Press on NBC News