YORK – Finest Kind Fish Market owner Michael Goslin has seen rare blue lobsters. But never in his 27 years in the business had he ever laid eyes on lobsters like the ones he received this week.

Goslin opened a crate from Canada that contained a couple dozen lobsters that he described as tannish-orange in color.

Lobsters are normally greenish-black and turn red when they’re cooked. Those born without pigments come in rare hues of red, blue or white.

Goslin received 18 of the lobsters, which were caught off Cape Breton. They came from Jamie Rainer of Kildare Fisheries in Alberton, Prince Edward Island, who kept some of the lobsters for himself.

“Everybody’s scratching their heads as to how could this possibly happen,” Goslin said.

An Associated Press photographer who viewed Goslin’s lobsters described them as a pale red. “They look like they’ve been cooked, but they were definitely moving around,” Tim Boyd said. Goslin said none of the lobsters he received are destined for a pot of boiling water.

Instead, he has decided to donate one to the state Department of Marine Resources. Another is going to the New England Aquarium in Boston and another to the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans.

Two will be sold at auction with the proceeds going to the Center for Wildlife, a nonprofit organization in Cape Neddick.

Bob Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, said yellow-orange “calico” lobsters are unusual but not extremely rare. He said he sees a few a year.

So-called albino lobsters, which are totally white, are the rarest of all, Bayer said Friday.