Craw-Facts
- Crawfish walk forward and swim backward because they have four legs for walking and four for swimming.
- Crawfish can drown without access to fresh air
- Louisiana supplies 90 percent of the crawfish consumed in the United States.
- Crawfish have extremely good eyesight and can move their eyes independently of one another.
- Crawfish reach adult size in about four years, but can actually live up to 30 years in the wild.
- Crawfish season varies from one year to the next, based on how cold (or mild) the weather was during the Gulf Coast winter. It also depends on the amount of rain, and the water levels in the swamps and bayous.
- There are 500 species of crawfish worldwide! Crawfish live on every continent in the world except for Antarctica and Africa
- Crawfish can shed (molt) their shells up to 15 times in a lifetime, with the crawfish nearly doubling its size with each molt.
- A female crawfish lays 200 to 400 eggs and attaches them under her tail where they remain until they hatch.
- Crawfish can regenerate lost limbs, particularly useful during mating season when males can get very competitive and aggressive, and lose legs.
- Crawfish can be blue, white, green and yellow. But when cooked, they turn red.
- Crawfish are not actually fish. They are crustaceans.
- Crawfish are also called crayfish, crawdads and mudbugs.
