What a 14-Year-Old With Her Own Lobster Business Pulled Up in a Trap Is Considered a 'One-in-2-Million Find

We've seen some oddly colored lobsters before, but few can top the shade this electric blue of one landed off the coast of Maine over the weekend.

Meghan LaPlante, a 14-year-old from Old Orchard Beach, was pulling up traps for her business set in Saco Bay when she spotted the crustacean of an unusual color, the Portland Press Herald reported.

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“It definitely stood out,” Jay LaPlante, the teen's father, told the newspaper.

Meghan, who has set traps for the last eight years with a student lobstering license under her business Miss Meghan Lobster Catch, told the Press Herald she named the lobster Skyler and is donating it to the Maine State Aquarium.

WCSH-TV reported that Skyler will join three other blue and one orange lobster on display at the aquarium.

Next year, Meghan will be able to apply for a commercial license that will allow her to set 300 traps, the Press Herald reported.

Watch the WCSH's feature about Meghan's business, which aired a couple of years ago:

The Lobster Institute at the University of Maine reports that scientists estimate only about one in every two million lobsters will have the defect to exhibit a blue color.

"The coloration comes from a genetic defect that causes the lobster to produce an excessive amount of a particular protein that gives the lobster that unique coloration," the institute said in a publication about rare lobsters released a couple of years ago. "They’re still lobsters, but they stand out because they’re different. And because that difference is rare and startling, among those who understand and appreciate the difference, they’re more valued!"

Even more rare than the blue lobster is the lobster that's red before its cooked. This only happens in about one in 10 million, according to the institute.

(H/T: USA Today)

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Front page image via Shutterstock.