Crayfish Essay

457 Words1 Page

Crayfish are Crustaceans, which is a type of Arthropod. Crayfish has five pairs of legs which are jointed, counting the pinchers it has to pick up food and defend itself. The other four pairs are used for walking legs. They have a hard exoskeleton and as aforementioned, two, big pinchers. They have two small pairs or smaller antennas to sense food in the water and find a mate, while the bigger antennas are used for touch and making sure it doesn’t bump into things. They have two eyes which are on stalks so they can rotate around, and lastly they have a tail to help with steering and swimming. Crayfish will use their pinchers to catch food and also defend themselves if attacked or threatened. Crayfish are closely related to crabs, lobsters, and shrimp. Some species of crayfish are signal crayfish, red swamp crayfish, and rusty crayfish. Crayfish only live in freshwater and can live in moving or standing water. Crayfish are omnivore, so they eat both plants and animals. Most fossils records of crayfish come from the last 30 million years, but there are some …show more content…

That way, whatever is trying to eat it would back off or get hurt while trying to eat the crayfish. One of the most important body structures of the crayfish is it’s hard exoskeleton, which looks like plates of armor. Without it, it would just be exposed and without protection from being hurt. Bumping into things would cause much more damage. Another important bodily structure are the cheliped, or the ‘pinchers’, which look like pinchers. They enable the crayfish to catch and eat food, and defend itself against animals wanting to eat it. As with the exoskeleton, they would be stripped of protection. Additionally, the gastric mill is important for the crayfish to digest food. The gastric mill is teeth inside the stomach, and without it the crayfish wouldn’t have the food properly digested, and be unable to

More about Crayfish Essay

Open Document