A fisherman has landed an ultra-rare blue lobster - beating odds of 'one in two million'.
Liam Thomas, 29, should consider buying a lottery ticket because his luck is in, as he's just landed a crustacean that could be worth hundreds.
Speaking to North Wales Live, he explained that he had been fishing off Anglesey’s coast when he made the extremely lucky catch near Puffin Island.
He said that he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the blue lobster in the pot, which stood out in stark contrast against the dark red of the others.
What do you think about Liam's catch? Let us know in the comments...
Liam said: "It was light blue, a kind of pastel colour, with just one main claw. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never caught anything like it before."
Liam works as a fisherman, but he normally lands crabs and lobsters in 400 pots on fleets of lines from his boat Good One.
In his time at sea, he has occasionally caught some crustaceans of a blueish hue.
He claimed: “I do catch some that are dark, dark blue, but nothing like the one I caught today."
Most lobsters caught in the Irish Sea are a mucky green-brown colour. Bright blue lobsters are incredibly rare: a stab-in-the-dark guesstimate by experts put the odds of finding a bluey at one in two million.
As roughly 200 million lobsters are caught in the North Atlantic every year, this means only 100 blue ones would be expected to be found each year. Their startling colour results from a genetic abnormality that causes them to produce an excess of a certain protein.
Lobsters under a certain size must be returned to the sea. But Liam said his blue lobster was fully grown and will be destined for the plate of someone with a fat wallet.
Despite their rarity, however, Liam doesn’t expect his special lobster to attract a premium. When boiled, blue lobsters turn an orangey-pink colour just like all the others.
"It will just stay in a keep pot for four or five days before it’s taken by my buyer along with the others," he said. "From there it will probably end up in Spain."
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Meanwhile, a man has beaten a billion to one odds after he found two incredibly rare lobsters - at a fishmongers in a landlocked county of Britain.
Joseph Lee, 47, is a caterer and was shopping at Makro Wholesale, a cash and carry, when he stopped by the fishmongers to peruse their wares.
When there he couldn't believe his eyes, as he saw two orange Canadian lobsters - which are so rare that just one in 30 million are ever caught, making the odds of finding two of them one in a billion.
Joseph then approached the fishmonger, in landlocked Leicester, and convinced him not to sell the lobsters, which were listed for £25.50 - but instead donate them to an aquarium.
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