Red swamp crawfish

Scientific

Procambarus clarkii is in the Cambaridae (North American freshwater crayfish family). Adults are 4–5 inches long, dark red as adults (juveniles are gray-and-brown). Native range: the lower [[batesville-ms|Mississippi]] River basin from [[downstate-illinois|southern Illinois]] to the Gulf, plus the eastern half of Texas and the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Habitat is seasonally-flooded freshwater wetland — [[cypress-tupelo-swamp|cypress-tupelo swamp]], bottomland hardwood, riverine floodplain, and (in modern [[arabi|Louisiana]] agriculture) rotational rice-and-crawfish ponds. The species copes with dry-season drought by digging burrows down to the water table — the characteristic chimneyed mud-towers visible in any south Louisiana yard or pasture in late summer.

The species is an omnivore — feeds on aquatic plants, decaying organic matter, snails, insect larvae, fish carrion, and other invertebrates. Reproduction is fast: a female produces 100–500 eggs per spawning, two spawnings per year are common, and individuals reach reproductive maturity in 4–6 months. The combination of fast reproduction, dietary flexibility, drought tolerance via burrowing, and tolerance for poor water quality has made the species an invasive pest where it has been introduced (Spain, Portugal, Kenya, Egypt, Italy, southern China) for aquaculture.

Cultural

The [[arabi|Louisiana]] commercial fishery harvests ~150 million pounds annually — the largest freshwater crustacean fishery in the world. Production splits roughly 70% rice-and-crawfish rotational ponds (the rice harvest in fall, the field is flooded over winter, the crawfish are harvested in spring before the field is drained and replanted to rice) and 30% wild harvest from the [[atchafalaya-basin|Atchafalaya Basin]] and adjacent swamps. The wild harvest is largely Cajun-French and Houma fisher operations; the pond fishery is large-scale agricultural.

The crawfish boil is the foundational [[arabi|Louisiana]] spring-and-summer social meal — a large outdoor pot of water, salt, lemon, garlic, cayenne, and commercial seasoning (Zatarain’s, Slap Ya Mama, [[arabi|Louisiana]] Crawfish Boil) is brought to a boil; live crawfish are added with corn, potatoes, andouille, and sometimes mushrooms and artichokes; the cooked batch is dumped on a newspaper-covered table for collective hand-eating. Per-person serving expectations of 3–5 pounds of live-weight crawfish are normal.

See also

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• Member of: [[animal]]
• Contained by: [[atchafalaya-basin]] · [[new-orleans]] · [[mississippi-river-delta-ecology]]