Airport security staff were forced into a pincer movement when a 20lb live lobster was spotted in a passenger’s luggage.

The lobster, found on Sunday in the checked luggage at Boston’s Logan International Airport’s Terminal C was said by Transportation Security Administration spokesman Michael McCarthy to be the largest he had seen.

A TSA agent holding a live lobster that weighs roughly 20 pounds at Boston's Logan International Airport (Transportation Security Administration via AP)A TSA agent holding a live lobster that weighs roughly 20 pounds at Boston’s Logan International Airport (Transportation Security Administration via AP)

The TSA does not forbid transporting lobsters, but a live creature must be carried in a “clear, plastic, spill-proof container”.

Mr McCarthy said the Logan lobster was in a cooler and far from being a crabby crustacean, “co-operated quite nicely with the screening process”.