Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Lobster liberation: colored like Smurf, so no surf and turf

MILTON MOORE / AP

Steve Hatch holds a rare blue lobster that he and his uncle caught June 10 in New London, Conn.

NEW LONDON, Conn. — A lobster caught last weekend by Steve Hatch and his uncle Robert Green was spared from the cookpot because of its color.

The 1 ½-pound clawed creature is bright blue, the result of an extremely rare genetic mutation.

It turned up Sunday morning in one of Hatch and Green's lobster traps at the mouth of the Thames River.

"I've heard about them, but this is the first one I've ever seen," Hatch told The Day newspaper.

Later that afternoon, he put the lobster in a cooler and brought it to the Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration, where it will live out its days in an elementary-school classroom for children to learn about.

Catherine Ellis, a curator at the aquarium, said only one in 3 million lobsters is "true blue," meaning its color is the result of genetics and not the environment.

But if blue lobsters are cooked like their red brethren, they, too, turn red, Ellis said.