A crayfish

Welcome back to ! Today, we are comparing the native Calico Crayfish to the Invasive Rusty Crayfish.

Benefits of Calico Crayfish include:
✅ Breaking down dead plant material, which promotes nutrient recycling and makes food available to smaller organisms
✅ Being a nutritious food source for larger organisms
✅ Used as bait for anglers

Negative impacts of Rusty Crayfish include:
❌ Destroy aquatic plant beds, which decreases fish spawning habitat
❌ Consume both plant and animal matter, leading to increased competition for food
❌ Larger size and aggressive nature helps them outcompete native species for food and space
❌ Can hybridize with native species, impacting gene pool
❌ Only one egg-carrying female has to be introduced to a waterbody to start a new population

Rusty Crayfish is just one of many aquatic invasive species (AIS) threatening the health and resiliency of the Great Lakes Watershed. Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers has many great tips on how to prevent the spread of AIS at https://stopaquatichitchhikers.org/.

Benefits
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crayfish benefits
Crawfish are a fantastic choice for people watching their weight because they are low in fat and calories. They also include a lot of potassium, which supports normal blood pressure levels. Let's have a brief look at the health benefits they provide us.

Compatible fish
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fish that can live with crayfish
Image result for fish that can live with crayfish
Guppies, Endlers, Platies or Swordtails are a perfect match for crayfish in terms of their water hardness requirements. These species reproduce very strongly, so it does not matter much if the crayfish catches a careless fish.

Compatible fish
…
fish that can live with crayfish
Image result for fish that can live with crayfish
Guppies, Endlers, Platies or Swordtails are a perfect match for crayfish in terms of their water hardness requirements. These species reproduce very strongly, so it does not matter much if the crayfish catches a careless fish

Taste
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What do crayfish taste like?
Crawfish are known for having a sweet-leaning flavor profile. “I think they are sweeter than lobster, a bit like blue crab with a sweetness that comes through even after boiling,” Brennan says. “But nothing tastes quite like crawfish.

Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea

Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the infraorder Astacidea, which also contains lobsters.