Rare BLUE lobster is spared from the pot and found a home to live a ‘long, happy life’ after it was caught by fishermen – and its rescuers now want suggestions for a name

A stunning and extremely rare blue lobster captured by fishmongers off the coast of western France has been spared the pot and is now in need of a fitting nickname. 

Fishmongers at Les Viviers de Noirmoutier, a seafood retailer in France, were shocked when they stumbled upon the unusual crustacean while fishing off the Île d’Yeu, a tiny commune off the west coast of France.

According to the retailer’s Facebook post, the odds of finding a blue lobster are approximately one in two million, making this a particularly unique discovery.

Rather than capitalising on the rarity of the stunning sapphire colour of their charge, the fishmongers decided to take a compassionate route. 

Collaborating with the Île d’Yeu tourism office, they identified a suitable habitat for the lobster’s release where fishing is prohibited, ensuring the lobster could live out its life undisturbed.

Now the seafood retailer is asking its Facebook followers to come up with a nickname for the curious creature. 

The highly unusual blue hue displayed by the crustacean found off the coast of France comes as a result of a genetic mutation which causes the cells layered within the lobsters’ shells to produce a specific pigment

The lobster was returned to an area of the coast where fishing is not permitted

Fishmongers have appealed to Facebook users for help in coming up with a suitable nickname for the lobster

According to the retailer’s Facebook post, the odds of finding a blue lobster are approximately one in two million, making this a particularly unique discovery

Typically, lobsters are brown in colour while alive, though turn bright red when cooked.

But as with any animal, some anomalies do exist.

The highly unusual blue hue displayed by the crustacean found off the coast of France comes as a result of a genetic mutation which causes the cells layered within the lobsters’ shells to produce a specific pigment.

But while blue lobsters are rare, they are not entirely unheard of.

The New England Aquarium received its own blue lobster in 2020, and other instances of blue lobsters have been reported, including one discovered by a father-son fishing duo in Casco Bay, Maine, in 2022.

Although these colourful lobsters capture attention, they all ultimately turn red when subjected to the boiling pot – with the exception of extremely rare white and albino lobsters.

These animals are far more rare – with researchers estimating they appear just once in 100 million lobsters.