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Description
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Photo
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This forest looks like the last place you would expect to meet a crayfish.
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Have a closer look. This stream is so small you could step across it. But is has several secrets. One is that it is fed by two small springs. It never dries up, so things can live there you wouldn't normally expect.
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Another secret is that it is full of freshwater crayfish. They are hard to see, but there is one almost exactly in the centre of this picture. If you observe very closely, you'll see it is the same pregnant crayfish from the crayfish eggs page. A pregnant crayfish will tuck her tail in to protect her eggs. If her tail wasn't tucked in you could see the paddles at the end of her tail. So sometimes you can recognise ones carrying eggs without having to pick them up.
Click here for an entire page of photos with this crayfish and her eggs.
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It's not easy photographing crayfish when they are underwater. The camera autofocus tends to go for the water's surface instead of the crayfish. One way around this problem is to throw some meat in this shallow area just above some rocks where I know some crayfish live. When the little guys follow the smell to the meat, they have to cross this area out of the water and I can easily photo them. That was pretty sneaky of me wasn't it?
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I've picked this one up so you can have a better look. Watch out for those nippers! You can see how the left nipper on this one has been broken and the cray is growing a new one. So the left one only has a half and a stump for now, but I know from personal experience that these guys have a grip like a steel press if they get to nip you and can draw blood.
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I'm really pushing my luck with this crayfish. He or she was returned to the stream a short while later and got a piece of old lunch chicken to eat as compensation for this indignity. The claws are a bit out of focus, but check out that mouth. The bit in the middle are like two grinders. Things go in and they get devoured. So if you are a worm on the stream bed, you better watch out.
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Here the cray's head taken from the top
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This crayfish has only one claw which makes it easy to recognise. Everytime I throw some chicken into the stream near the inflow of this pipe, this crayfish crawls out for a look. I had thought crayfish probably didn't have regular homes, but just came out at night and bunked down whereever they found themselves when morning arrived. However, now that I can recognise some individuals, it's become obvious that they do appear to stick to one hole to bed down in for the daylight hours.
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Here's a crayfish underside. No eggs under this ones tail. It's either male or just isn't carrying eggs at the moment. |
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Here's another headshot |
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Another headshot. I thought I didn't have many shots of their heads and should take some to complete the album. If you want to see other parts of their anatomy, there are carapace shots, side shots etc on the other pages. |
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