Posted by Laura Landis on November 3, 2005

Q: Are crayfish sensative to vibrations?

Do crayfish taste the same main tastes that humans do?

What causes appendages to fall off?

A: Wow, these are really good/hard questions! I have some thoughts on your questions but my answers will NOT be the final word - I may be wrong, so beware.

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1. I've never even thought about crayfish being sensitive to vibrations until you asked, but it's a good question. Since crayfish live in water on the bottom of lakes and streams, and it is known that vibrations travel much more efficiently in water than in air, I could easily believe they can and do receive and interpret vibrations in their environment. Maybe a footfall of someone walking in a stream, the commotion of a nearby hungry otter or just the gurgle and sloshing of water running over rocks. This certainly could be tested in a laboratory and might be interesting to see what one could discover. Although fish have lateral lines that are very good at picking up vibrations in the water, I don't know of anything similar in crayfish.

2. Now this is a difficult one. My guess would be that crayfish do indeed have a sense of taste but probably unlike what we have. Probably, they aren't able to taste things that are sweet, for example. However, crayfish would need to focus their feeding efforts on nutritious foods so taste must certainly play a part in their "decision making" of foods. One could certainly offer a variety of foods to see what crayfish prefer to eat but I'm not sure what this would tell you about its sense of taste.

3. You probably already know that many different kinds of animals can lose appendages without harm. Certain species of lizards come to mind as being very good at losing their tails if grabbed and simply grow a new one. However, I don't know of any crayfish that do this "voluntarily". If an appendage is lost however, they are able to regrow a new one. I think trauma to the animal, not a special adaptation, is what causes these to be lost.

Hope I've helped a little bit. These answers are my thoughts and are not research-based. Thanks for asking.

John Wiessinger ( November 4, 2005)