Fun Facts

-  It is an endangered species.  Humans going into the caves and capturing the crayfish is harming the already small population.

-  The amount of humans entering the cave is now being limited.

-  The cave is limited on organic matter to feed the cray fish.  They feed on the guano of gray bats, which are also endangered. 

-  The crayfish are very closely related to the lobster.  One of the main differences is that the crayfish lives in freshwater. 

-  In Europe, crayfish is a very popular meal!  The parts of the crayfish that are most often eaten are the claws and the abdomen.

-  The crayfish have very good eyesight.  Their eyes can also move independently from each other

-  The crayfish will sometime eat their own exoskeletons to gain back the calcium and phosphates that it contains. 

-  During the mating season, the males will compete for mates and in the process will sometimes lose a claw or a leg.  When the crayfish does lose a limb, it can be easily grown back, it just takes a lot of energy to produce the new tissue.

-  The crayfish can be found plenty of times under a rock which is used for shelter.  The bigger the rock, the bigger the crayfish usually.

-  The crayfish have a lot of predators.  Some of the predators include: raccoons, opossums, snakes, and muskrats.

-  The crayfish are useful to humans in some ways.  One of the ways is that they clean up dead plants and animals from the bottom of streams.  Another way that they help out humans is that they help control the populations of insects and other organisms.  One more way is that fisherman sometimes use the crayfish as bait.

-  The shape of the crayfish’s sperm is very unique.  It is described by most as amoeba-like.

-  A hydrogeologist is a scientist who studies crayfish, among other types of fish.

-  When a crayfish walks, it moves forward.  But when it swims, it moves backwards.  It uses powerful abdomen movements to swim rapidly through the water.  This occurs often when the crayfish is being preyed upon so it can make a rapid escape from its predator.

-  The largest crayfish in the world lives in Australia.  It can reach a size of 16 inches from its head to its tail!

-  The eggs of a crayfish resemble caviar.  When the female takes care of its brood under the abdomen, the female is known to be in ‘berry’ because the eggs look like blackberries.

-  Around 55,000 tons of crayfish are produced in Louisiana each year.  That’s about 90% of the world’s crayfish population!

-  Other names for the crayfish are crawdads, mudbugs, and crawfish.  Locals of different regions of the country have different names for the crayfish.