The Atlantic Lobster (Homarus gammarus) is a large crustacean of the coastal waters of the North east Atlantic. They can grow to almost a metre in length and 5 kilos in weight and may live up to 30 years. [The American Lobster of the NW Atlantic (Homarus americanus) can go over 20 kilos.]

They are normally dark blue, only going red on cooking, and have two large claws or chelae, one being a sharp cutter and the other a more powerful crusher. Most shore crabs are right-handed, the right claw being the crusher, but the majority of European lobsters tend to have the left one as the crusher.

The latest arrival at the National Marine Aquarium breaks both these norms by being bright orange and having two cutter claws. This interesting creature was caught south of the Isle of Wight at the beginning of April, by the Salcombe crabber Emma Jane, skipper Chris New.

Douglas Herdson, the Information Officer at the National Marine Aquarium, was astounded never having come across one like this before. “I’ve seen ones with two crusher claws and orange or even white ones, but the likelihood of having both two cutters and being orange must be millions to one.” He commented.

If a crab or lobster lose a crusher claw, at the next moult the cutter starts growing into a crusher and a new cutter will start from the stump. However, occasionally one has two seemingly identical claws. This appears to be a freak condition, the two sides of these crustaceans seem to develop separately from a very early stage in the embryo’s genesis and can end up different colours or even different sexes. Presumably this is what has happened in this case, ending up with two cutter chelae rather than one of each.

The blue colour of a lobster is due to an orange protein in the shell linking to a colourless one and becoming blue; when the animal is cooked the link is broken and the pigment becomes orange. It is probably that this lobster lacks the enzyme to join the two proteins together and hence stays orange. Occasionally lobsters are found in which the gene that makes the orange colour is faulty and the animal is white or very pale. There has even been an American lobster that was dark blue on the left and bright orange on the right.

"For one creature to have two such rare unrelated features is almost unknown. This is truly a one in ten million beastie."