It wouldn't be a good idea to get into an arm wrestling match with Rocky, the largest recorded lobster ever caught in Maine. So watch out if you're planning on doing any swimming in New England this year.
A shrimp trawler caught Rocky, who measures 40 inches and weighs in at 27 pounds off the coast of Cushing, Maine and donated him to Maine State Aquarium in West Boothbay. Maine fisherman aren't allowed to keep lobsters that are more than five inches from eye stalk to tail, and Rocky was returned to the chilly bosom of the Atlantic on Thursday.
Even though, according to Elaine Jones, education director for the state's Department of Marine Resources, Rocky could break a person's arm, he's a shrimp compared to the Guinness Record-holder for largest lobster ever caught. That would be the monster caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977. That sucker weighed a whopping 44 pounds and was probably the subject of big fish stories for decades afterward.
Maine's biggest lobster returned to Atlantic Ocean [MSNBC via The Daily What]