Martin Hromulak (38) got a very rare variety of king crab when he pulled up the cod line on Wednesday. A form of albinism, explains the expert.
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– I’m at sea right now. I got it an hour ago, says Hromulak on the phone from the sea outside Båtsfjord in Finnmark.
The king crab with its sensational azure color is not everyday food for the fisherman.
– You may get someone with a bit of color now and then, but it is very rare that it is so blue, says Hromulak to VG.
– Are you going to eat it yourself?
– It will be sold, says the cod fisherman, who believes there is little chance of the crab appearing in the nearest fish counter.
– Will there be blue king crab in the shop?
– I doubt it. As I said: It is very rare, answers Hromulak.
–– Great crab!
Marine biologist and head of the Ocean Team in WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), Fredrik Myhre, confirms that the blue king crab is in fact a king crab.
– What a great crab! he says on the phone to VG.
According to Myhre, it is rare to catch a blue king crab out of the sea.
– The phenomenon occurs. A few blue crabs came up last year too. As a rule, the research says that one to five of these appear during the year.
According to Institute of Marine Research the quota for king crabs is 1,845 tonnes for commercial fishing in the Norwegian zone in 2022. Myhre says that a full-grown king crab can weigh up to 8 kilos. Thus, there are many kilograms of red king crab per kilogram of blue king crab.
– This is one of quite a few crabs that come up, says Myhre and adds:
– This is not something every king crab fisherman sees every year.
–– A kind of albinism
The reason the crab is blue is that it is unable to produce the characteristic red color that normal king crabs have.
– This is most likely a normal red king crab that is unable to produce the pigment that makes it red, says Myhre.
– It is a kind of albinism, but it is not an albino, he adds.
–There is also a natural species of blue king crab, says the marine biologist.
– There is a species of king crab in Alaska that is blue. It is a species that lives mostly quite isolated in cold water areas in Alaska. As far as I know, no blue Alaskan crab has been discovered in Norway, so it is highly likely that this is a common red king crab, says Myhre.
– This crab seems to have done well?
– It seems to have had few enemies and has grown large and mature. This is a species that rarely exceeds eight kilos.
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