Crayfish

Male crayfish are behaviorally similar to the male of our species.  According to Crayfish Confrontation, an online article I found at Wild and Free in Montana, crayfish are aggressive and territorial by nature.  They tend to brawl a lot—using their big pincher claws as the weapons of choice.  Most of us have likely not given notice to such crayfish activity because they live at the bottom of rivers, lakes, and ponds.  They also tend to hide under rocks by day and are active at night.

Some male crayfish—just as their human counterparts—avoid fighting by employing bluster and fakery.  No, they don’t run out and buy big trucks with chrome roll bars and oversized tires to make up for other shortcomings.  They don’t flash wads of borrowed money.  Instead, some male crayfish will grow abnormally large claws that scare the hell out of potential combatants and cause opponents to scuttle away in fear.

Two points of interest here.

First, the larger claws are actually weaker in “pinching power” than those of normal size.

Second, some lucky biologist garnered a pretty decent paycheck to test the pinching power of oversized claws on male crayfish.

Here is and intentional blank space: ___________.  You are welcome to insert a sigh or the curse word of your choice into the blank space for not being the person to think of measuring the pinching power of crayfish as a career move.

Brilliant!

 

Almost as brilliant as researching and documenting what happens to mosquitoes when a raindrop hits them in midflight.

Biologists call such things as crayfish growing oversized, but weaker claws “dishonesty in weapons signaling.”

Here is another blank space: ___________.  You are welcome to insert what you consider the appropriate dollar amount for developing the phrase dishonesty in weapons signaling.  I landed at just under $100.00 on this one.  If lunch was involved, I am also willing to cover that as an added expense.

Finally, I have posted a photograph of a mess crayfish that my cousin Buzz boiled-up over the weekend.  They were my inspiration to read about crayfish.  Buzz caught the crayfish in some traps he set in some shallow water near a heap of boulders along the shore of Canyon Ferry Reservoir. 

They tasted delicious!

By the way, pretty much nothing happens when raindrops strike mosquitoes in midair.

The more you know…

--Mitchell Hegman