Colourful lobsters being hauled in across the Maritimes

Lobster season may have been slow to get started but several colourful lobsters are being caught in traps across the Maritimes.

Gaston Martin was the latest to haul in a bright blue lobster.

"Caught this little bleu guy in one of my traps the other day of Escuminac Point, N.B.," Martin said in a message.

Donald Aubé discovered a yellow lobster in one of his traps off the coast of Petit-Rocher this week.

Across the Northumberland Strait, Parker MacDonald sent a photo of a blue lobster that he caught off Cable Head, P.E.I.

The colouration is caused by a genetic defect that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein that gives the lobster the unique colour.

The odds of finding a blue lobster are estimated to be one in two million.

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Zoologist Andrew Hebda of the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History said to hear of three unusually coloured lobsters in one week is "kind of on the unusual side."

"With the advent of social media, we're actually … getting a lot more reports in general of unusual things," said Hebda on CBC Maritime Noon.

"It may not be necessarily that there are any more, but certainly if one is found the news gets out right away."

Hebda says a lobster's colour is determined by a mix of yellow, red and blue pigments.

"What happens is it all depends on which dominates. Under normal circumstances they are in balance."

Hebda says the rarest colour lobster is white at one in 100 million. It remains white after being boiled, he said.