Despite a find that scientists say has a one in two million chance, a lifelong fisherman threw the ultra-rare, all-blue crustacean into the ocean.

A fisherman was left stunned after pulling an incredibly rare blue lobster out of the ocean.

Stuart Brown, 28, from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, said the capture was “a surprise to everyone”.

The remarkable creature was found near Blackhead Lighthouse after it was raised in a pot on the north shore of the lake.

However, the lobster was too small to keep, so he was forced to return it to the water once he took his photographs.

He said: “He’s still in the lake somewhere, swimming around as happy as can be. Hopefully, if someone else catches it, they’ll return it too.”

His boat was in deep water at the time of capture, between 15 and 18 meters.

Describing the find, he said: “I slid the pot towards the crew member who picked it up and made a comment: ‘That’s very blue.’

“I looked at him and said, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ But then I looked at it again and said, ‘That’s too blue.'”

Already a veteran fisherman who started when he was 11, he added: “There were lobsters out there that don’t look normal, they would be a little browner or redder, something different with them, but nothing that extreme.

“I Googled it to see how rare it was, and I had a one in two million chance of catching it.”

The shareholder in the entire County Down seafood company said it was now one of the “strange and wonderful things” found in the ocean that he could tick off his list.

Genetic differences can cause some lobsters to be a different color than the more commonly found brown or red variety.

The difference means that certain proteins are made at different rates than others.

Scientists estimate the chance of catching a blue lobster is one in two million, meaning it really was Stuart’s lucky day.