Have you ever seen a mutant lobster?

Everyone knows what a Maine lobster looks like.

What most people don’t realize, though, is how common it is for lobstermen to pull mutated or different colored lobsters from their traps.

Based on varying factors such as genetics and where the lobster chooses to molt, mutant lobsters come in colors like brown, orange, white, and blue, and they come with multiple claws, along with other deformities.

Sometimes they’re also riddled with “shell disease,” which causes the lobster’s shell to deteriorate, but are still perfectly fine to eat.

On Tuesday a Canadian lobsterman named Jared Lee Elderkin shared a photo of one of the crazier looking mutant lobsters that I’ve ever seen on the LFA 33 & LFA 34 Lobster Fisherman Association Facebook page with the caption “fully functional claw”:

Back in 2014, I posted a few blogs of all the funky and amazing looking lobsters that my former Captain and I had pulled out of his traps on Casco Bay that year. Here are some of those mutants:

 

Chris Shorr

About Chris Shorr

Chris is a sixth generation Portlander who loves all things Maine. He has worked with mentally ill and marginalized adults at a Portland non-profit, on a lobster boat in Casco Bay, at several high-end Portland restaurants, and at a local meat packing plant. He also ran for Portland City Council in 2013, wrote a weekly column in the now defunct Portland Daily Sun, and currently writes a weekly column in The Portland Phoenix.