Posted by Kim Trask on July 12, 2006

Q: Ibelieve my son and I found 2 female crawdads, crawfish, or crayfish which ever you wantto call them. Both appeared to have white eggs if you will that had brownish colored spot's in the middle of them that where moving. The other possible female had the same type's white thing's but they appeared to have tail's at the end of each one of the white spot's are these females and there babies? These white jell thing's where on there claw's not there tail's is this normal or some kind of other creature living on the crawdads? Mind you We live in the Bitteroot valley of Montana so could it be the differance in location or climate? We have long winters and short summer's here. The place we found them was under a bridge that every one uses for swimming,boating fishing ect. We found them under rocks and in the shallow water's adn around the pilar's of the bridge.Please respond we are really want to know whether or not these are babies we like to hunt for the crawdads and eat them as well as using them for fishing bait, THANK YOU for YOUR HELP.

State: Montana

Habitat: stream/river

A: All three names are fine - it kind of depends on where you live as to what they're called. Scientists usually call them crayfish.

If your crayfish have babies, they should look exactly like miniature versions of the parents. So, it sounds to me as though your whitish little guys may be some kind of parasite. I'd really like to see what these little guys are since I can't quite imagine what they might be. Most animals in nature are afflicted by parasites of one kind or another and my guess would be that this is what is happening here. Sorry I can't nail this for you but if you can get a photo of these, I'd love to see them. Thanks for writing.

John Wiessinger ( July 12, 2006)