What’s the Value of a Blue Lobster?

It was all in a day's work. On May 5, 2024, Chris Puckey headed out to check his lobster traps off Polperro, along the coast of Cornwall, England, and found an exceedingly rare gem: a bright blue female lobster.

After his discovery, Puckey called Jacqueline Spencer, a fishmonger who buys his lobster catch and owns Kitty's Lobster, Crab & Seafood Shack in Polperro, where she serves locally caught seafood. "It's a vivid blue color," Spencer says. "It's absolutely stunning."

Given its weight, the lobster would have fetched roughly $31 for Puckey. But instead of selling the blue crustacean or returning it to the sea, where it could be eaten by a predator, Pucky and Spencer found a safer home for it in a local aquarium. The size of the carapace, or top section of the lobster, measured 87 millimeters, which meant Puckey wasn't required to put the lobster back in the sea.

How Rare Are Blue Lobsters?

Typically, lobsters caught off the Atlantic coast of the United Kingdom and North America tend to be darkish blue-green to greenish-brown in color. Once boiled, they turn orangey-pink. Chris Puckey, like the few other catchers of blue lobsters before him, was destined for good fortune, according to fishing folklore.

So, just how rare are blue lobsters, and what are your chances of catching one for dinner? According to the University of Maine Lobster Institute, the blue color is caused by an abundance of a particular protein from a genetic defect. While the university has stated that only one blue lobster exists for every two million, research director Dr. Robert Bayer admits that that statistic is only a guess: "The chances of this happening nobody really knows," he says. And the scarcity of the animal means they are highly valuable.

Some experts have even suggested that blue lobsters are fairly easy to come by. David Spiegelhalter, a British statistician, claimed that about 200 million lobsters are caught in the North Atlantic every year, which equates to 100 blue ones turning up in a year on average—based on the popular one in two million ratio.

That would help to explain the occasions when blue lobsters have been caught in quick succession, such as in 2016 when two fishermen off the coast of Nova Scotia reeled in two of these lobsters over the course of a few days.

Charlie Ellis of the UK National Lobster Hatchery in Cornwall believes the iridescent blue seen in North American species (European blue lobsters are a duller color) is even more common. According to him, the probability of a lobster being bright blue may be as low as one in a few hundred thousand.

Other Rare Lobsters

Most agree that blue lobsters, though rare, are not the rarest form of lobster. Yellow and calico lobsters, for example, account for approximately one in 30 million, according to estimates from the Lobster Institute and New England Aquarium. Even more rare: a half black-half orange “Halloween” colored lobster which occurs in the wild at an incidence of in one in 50 million.

White—also known as albino or “crystal”—lobsters are said to be even harder to find. The odds of spotting one of them, according to researchers, is thought to be one in 100 million.

How Much Do Blue Lobsters Cost?

Blue lobsters are perfectly suitable for consumption. They have been priced as high as $500 on eBay, although the listing failed to attract a single bid, so it's safe to say the worth of blue lobsters is debatable.

When restaurant Per Se featured its blue lobster and wagyu menu, it was priced at $560. For the same amount that it would cost two people to dine on blue lobster, you may also be able to buy a pair of rare Nike "Blue Lobster" sneakers, which can fetch several thousand dollars. 

The Bottom Line

It’s hard to put a dollar value on a blue lobster. When they are caught, they are usually put back into the sea, which makes them even rarer and deserving of a higher price.

Some restaurants have put them on their menu for hundreds of dollars. Presumably, there are people out there that are willing to fork out to say they ate this rare form of lobster, even though the crustaceans are unlikely to taste much different from motley-brown ones. There’s also likely to be a collectors market out there somewhere for this type of lobster, with prices that fluctuate depending on the supply and demand dynamics at any given moment.