HALIFAX - A lobster with two different colours – and two different genders – has been caught in Nova Scotia, and fishermen say they've never seen anything like it.
The lobster is split right down the middle: half blue, half greenish-brown, half male, half female.
Murray Townsend caught the lobster off Cape Sable Island in mid-December.
"I've seen lobsters of different colours, shades and with different markings, but nothing quite like this," said Townsend.
I. Deveau Fisheries in North East Point, N.S., bought the lobster and donated it to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography. The curiosity is being held there in a salt-water tank for observation.
Paul Nickerson, a plant manager at I. Deveau, said he has only seen one other hermaphrodite in his 20 years in the lobster business, although he occasionally sees unusually coloured ones, such as an all-blue male.
His company has also come across other unusual lobsters this season, including one with three claws, a yellow specimen and a tiny red and black lobster.
Nickerson said the half-and-half lobster has both female and male reproductive organs, but the male ones are more fully developed.
"The female flipper on that one is only half the size that it should be," he said. "I'm thinking that it may not produce as female, but it might as male."
Stephan Nolan, a biological technician for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said the odds of coming across such a specimen are probably one in a few million.
"The colour aspect is purely genetic, but the sex aspect is probably more developmental," said Nolan.
Nolan said the lobster would probably be fine to eat, but this one will go on display at the Bedford Institute.
