A two-tone crab caught off the Isles of Scilly last week, is a rarity say experts. A Newlyn shellfish skipper and his crew were amazed to catch the half-coloured hen crab while working off Land's End.

Skipper Peter Round aboard the Michael & David, said he had never seen anything like the crab - which measured 155mm across its shell - before.

Scientist Douglas Herdson at Plymouth's National Marine Aquarium, where the creature has been taken, said he had seen a lobster, caught in the Channel Isles, with a similar configuration.

"It would be wrong to say it's half albino as one side is light brown, the other is dark brown and an albino is pure white, but it is a remarkable sight," he said. "It is difficult to say what caused the two colours, it may have been a change at the very start of the animal's life, the early stages of the egg after fertilisation, or even before. I have seen a similar coloured slipper lobster in the Gulf and know a colleague who has seen a Dublin Bay prawn with two-sided colouring. Sometimes it is even possible to see shellfish that have different sexes on the same animal."

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