OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Fourteen-year-old Meghan LaPlante and her father, Jay LaPlante, were out for a typical day of lobstering off Pine Point Saturday, when they pulled up a trap and found something not so typical: a blue lobster.

“We were so amazed,” said the 14-year-old, who will soon be a freshman at Old Orchard Beach High School.

She said she’d never seen a blue lobster before. They are pretty rare, according to the University of Maine Lobster Institute, and only an estimated one in two million lobsters is blue.

LaPlante has been trapping lobster under the supervision of her father since she was 8 years old. She has a student license, which allows her to set 150 traps a year. She and her father run Miss Meghan’s Lobster Catch.

Because lobsters sometimes attack each other, LaPlante separated the blue crustacean from the others. She named it Skyler, which she said is one of her favorite names. Skyler, from photographs posted online, appears to be very vibrant in color. Skyler, at about 1.9 pounds, is “on the bigger side,” said LaPlante.

Unlike the rest of the day’s catch, Skyler didn’t end up in a boiling kettle of water or drenched in butter.

LaPlante said Tuesday morning she was donating Skyler later that day to the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor, where the lobster will be on display.

Elaine Jones, director of education at the aquarium, said the blue color in lobsters like Skyler is caused by a genetic mutation.

She said Tuesday morning the aquarium has a couple of blue lobsters, but referring to pictures she had seen of Skyler, “This one looks like the prettiest we have seen in a long time.”

Jones said that blue lobsters turn red when cooked, and are edible, but like shooting an albino deer, it’s considered very bad luck to eat a blue lobster.

Skyler has gotten international attention, and the Miss Meghan’s Lobster Catch Facebook page has requests for Skyler’s picture from news sources that include a newspaper from Italy, The Weather Channel and a television station in Arizona.

“It’s crazy,” said LaPlante.

LaPlante said the money she makes goes toward lobster traps, buoys and a college fund. She said she plans to be a teacher some day and continue lobstering in the summers, passing the tradition along to her children.

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or [email protected].