Crayfish
Crayfish are lobster-like crustaceans. They are sometimes called,"crawfish",or "crawdads", depending on where you might find them. They are funny looking animals that humans find to be tasty food.
Crayfish range in sizes of two inches, from the front of its head to the tip of its tail, to six inches in the same dimension. Some species are brown in color to olive, red, and orange. They have a joined head and thorax, and a segmented body. The head has a sharp snout, and the eyes are on moveable stalks. I have included a drawing of the internal anatomy on the title page of this report. They have two pincers to help them defend against enemies and to pick at (or capture) their food. They use these pincers for burrowing down in the ground under water. Both the males and females look generally the same.
You can find crayfish everywhere but Antarctica.
Crayfish (Astacidae) is digging his burrow
Crayfish
A meal of crawdads, Spring Break in New OrleansIn North America you can especially find them in Louisianna and the Mississippi Basin. They are mostly found in fresh water and some survive in fresh water. They like to linger in shallow, rocky places under water. You can find them in streams, swamps, lakes, and ponds. They like to burrow into the bottom of the underwater dirt, especially when the pools dry up during the hot summer. Crayfish can survive in tropical temperatures to almost freezing temperatures.
Long pincered crayfish eat plants and animals such as fish. They like to eat snails, algae, insect larvae, worms, and salmon eggs. If they have to they even eat each other to survive. They use their two pincers to pick their food and topull it close to their mouth. They are scavengers. They wait and ambush their prey.
The crayfish reproduces by the females carrying the fertilized eggs on...