WEBVTT - Ep. 476: Backwoods University - Catching Crawfish 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.480 Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife, 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.840 wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.880 conserving both. Big shout out to aex Hunt for their 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.119 support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and today, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.360 well fire up the boiler, cut up some onions, garlic 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.320 and sausage, because it's time for a crawfish boil. Well not, actually, 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:28.240 I wish it was, but it is time for all 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:29.840 of us to learn a little bit more about the 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.760 most popular crustacean that has ever graced the North American 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.960 fresh waters. And believe me, I bet you'll be surprised 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.159 at how much there is to learn about these critters. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:54.360 Let's get into it. I can picture the whole thing 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.360 in my head right now. It's early April. I pull 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.720 into my parents' driveway, and the second I open truck door, 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.240 I am welcomed by the familiar smell of boiling crawfish, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.360 the Cajun seasoning, the diced onions and garlic, the chopped sausage, 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.319 and of course the crawfish, all intermingling together in a 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.840 giant pot of boiling water to make a harmony of 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.600 good aroma and an even better taste. If you have 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.880 never had the privilege of attending a crawfish boil, you 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.320 are seriously missing out. It's a social event just as 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.039 much as it is a feast, and it's been a 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.560 staple of American Southern culture for a very long time. 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.040 I would even wager to say that you won't find 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.600 anyone down here that doesn't at least know what a 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.080 crawfish is. But that is where most of our knowledge ends, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:54.440 myself included before I did this episode. Crawfish, the small 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.080 and delicious fresh watershellfish that has brought more people together 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.440 than Woodstock ever did. Look what else do we know 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.760 about them? Where did they come from? How did they 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.880 get here? How many of these things are there? My friends, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.399 There's a much bigger and interesting story here, more so 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:13.000 than I even anticipated, And I think you're really gonna 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:14.480 like it, so let's jump into it. 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:18.440 And then we've got these Basically, these are you know, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:19.239 yabby pumps. 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.360 It's early June and I've just met up with Calvin 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.440 Razak for a day spin a field digging up crawfish. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.120 Calvin is an ichthyologist, which in the most basic terms 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.080 means he's a fish scientist that specializes in crayfish and 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.760 he works for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.840 I would say this is probably the last week I 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:40.160 would do a burrowing crayfish ever. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.080 Why it gets dry? 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:42.359 Man? 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:44.639 Oh okay, And these things are six to. 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:50.400 Eight feet deep from sometimes, like we're probably only gonna 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.400 get them if if they've. 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.519 Just started a new borough, or if we've just pissed 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:58.840 him off enough for them to come up. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.079 Okay, Calvin is explaining to me the methods that will 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.560 be trying to dig up these burrowing crayfish or crawfish. 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:07.639 I'm pretty sure the terms are interchangeable. 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.320 Okay, So that that's this One species is called the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.280 Jackson Prairie crayfish Jackson Prairie crayfish yep. And so the 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.520 Jackson Prairie crayfish is named after this region. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.079 This is called the Jackson Prairie. 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:20.640 I didn't know that. 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:22.119 Yeah, okay, I didn't know that part. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.679 I didn't know, Missippy Steer, right, yeah, okay, so yeah, 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.760 you know a lot about the region, so sure. 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.799 So yeah, it's. 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.480 Only it's this type of crayfish that lives in these 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.480 prairie habitats or these remnant prairie habitats, remnant prairies. Yeah, 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:42.040 and there's we got like sixty eight species of crayfish. 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.000 Okay, sorry to interrupt again so soon, but we've just 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.200 found fun facts. Number one, there are almost seventy different 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:54.280 species of crawfish just in Mississippi alone, Mississippi flatwoods crayfish, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.880 Jackson prairie crayfish, camp Shelby burrowing crayfish, banded mudbug, lonesome 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.320 grave digger, war paint mudbug. These are all different species 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.640 that also have some pretty cool names. 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:05.680 Cool huh. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.960 See. That's the other thing that I didn't know. Like 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.040 I knew that there was probably the same as most people. 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.000 Like I knew there's crawfish that goes into boil. Yeah, 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.560 and then beyond that, like I would know when I 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:25.440 was a kid at like Shiloh Park playing baseball. Yeah, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.880 ur in between practice, we would go to the ditches 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.320 and try to find crawfish, and I just knew some 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:33.400 of those crawfish looked a lot different than one ended 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:34.839 up in a crawfish bowl. And I didn't know. I 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:36.360 was just a guy that looked different. That's about as 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.320 far as my knowledge went. And that bass itedem sometimes. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's about it. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.240 But I didn't know there was sixty eight different species. 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.960 Yeah, no, I had no clue either. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.560 And you know, you know, fish and muscles and these 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.240 aquatic organisms are really diverse, like in Mississippi, we've got 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:54.800 a lot of them. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.040 Yeah. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:57.880 Yeah, I might get some hate if I say crawfish 0:04:57.960 --> 0:04:58.600 or crayfish. 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.920 You know, I never knew. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.240 Yeah, so yeah, I kind of used to use them interchangeably. 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:06.720 But I mean, if you're talking about them in a 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.560 science term, like if you're writing them down and it's 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:09.839 supposed to be cray fish. 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.039 Yeah, where did crawfish even come from? You know? 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.400 So cajun's well it's a French Yeah, well basic kind 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.080 of it's a French Well yeah, basically it's it's. 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:23.640 Like cravise is like the French word for it, cravise. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.240 And if you can imagine, you know, if you if 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.840 you're just mixing that up cravis, crayfish. 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.160 Crawfish, Yeah, that's kind of how it evolved. 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.680 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, no one comes a crayfish bowl, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.919 right right. Personally, if someone ever invited me to a 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.760 crayfish bowl, I think I would pass on it. Taking 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.120 that poor use in terminology, to be an indicator of 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:48.360 their cooking capabilities. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.000 But anyway, I can show you I brought in case 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.919 we don't get how much of crayfish I brought. 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.000 I watched Calvin open the back door of his truck 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.120 and begin digging around in the back seat, and he 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.960 emerged with the plastic tackle box one that you would 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.240 take fishing, except this one you didn't have crank baits, 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:11.200 jigs or artificial crawfish lures. He had actual crawfish, like 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.919 live ones swimming around in there I brought. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.720 Yeah, so, uh yeah, these are these are from our 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.000 survey we did up in North Mississippi. But that's that's 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:29.520 a lacuna cambarrass These are generally, you know, in more 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:31.400 Layman's terms, a mudbug. 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:32.560 Is that what we call these. 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:34.520 He looks like he'd go on a ball. Yeah. 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.800 Yeah, I've actually heard people eating these guys and they 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.039 just they taste muddy. 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.320 But I mean maybe they didn't. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:43.160 Purge him, right, but you get the claws on that guy. 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:44.919 Oh my gosh, man, that these guys. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:46.880 So it is called this one's called the war paint 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.880 mud bug because it's so fearsome and it's got some 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:52.360 real I mean, this is good. 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.120 This would hurt if it if it gets me, ye, 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:54.919 gets the hold of me. 0:06:55.000 --> 0:07:02.040 But something to be said about the confidence of a crawfish, 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.200 you know. Yeah, it's like looking at you and he's like, 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:06.039 I got this. 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.800 Well, if you're a crawfish, you know, Uh, everything eats 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.760 a crawfish, right, You've got to have these big clauses 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:16.800 to defend yourself if you got any chance. 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:18.640 Like bass love crawfish, right right. 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:25.080 Uh, there's a lot of studies out there, owls, hawks. 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.320 Different snake species, amphibians like the. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.880 Hell bender, yeah, otters, mink, cross I mean, there's like 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.280 hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things animals that live 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.280 in the in the water or or adjacent to the 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:43.600 water that just eat them. And it's like, uh, like ibises, Yeah, 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.840 their diet is crawfish and they're probably eating the ones 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.280 that are these burrowing ones that come up seasonally after 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:52.840 a rain event. 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:54.680 They might live in pools and then they kind of 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.800 go back down. But yeah, this. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.720 Is there any telling like a crawfish that size. Is 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.200 there any way to tell how old a crawfish that 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.160 is crawfish like that is? 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:05.920 Yeah, that's great, that's a great question. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.520 Yeah, crawfish, we are. It's such a new field that 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.920 there's questions like that that we don't even really know 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.600 the answer to. We think something like this is like 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.600 a three or four year old crawfish. But there's there's 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:27.720 cave crawfish that can live twenty five thirty years. There's 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.640 some crayfish that just live a year. Yeah, And so 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.040 it would not surprise me that if we, you know, 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.080 developed the proper tools to actually. 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:40.520 Start studying these guys, that we would figure out that 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.120 these guys lived a little bit longer than three to 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.960 four years, because I mean these les live. 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:49.560 Underground and uh, I mean they don't move very much. 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.640 Yeah, and they stay in their tunnels underground year round. 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.040 I would guess if they're underground, can't nothing really get 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:56.400 to them. 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.800 Oh, it's a perfect defense, right, Yeah. I think that's 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.680 why they a lot of he's adapted to start digging 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:07.079 underground because it's in a stream environment. You're a perfect prey, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.079 right for a lot of things. But if you live underground, 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:11.719 then nothing can get you. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.600 So what have we learned so far? Well, a couple 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.360 of things. Number One, humans aren't the only ones that 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.760 love to eat crawlfish. A whole lot of other things 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:24.880 do too, owls, hawks, raccoons, ibis, just to name a few. 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.959 Number two, there's some crawfish that can live up to 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:32.120 twenty five years. That is insane. Number three and I'm 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.640 speculating here, but from what I can tell from Calvin, 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:36.840 it seems like there's a whole lot left to learn 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:38.200 about these tiny animals. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:44.440 Anyway, let's continue. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.800 Yeah, okay, we got a few more here too. I mean, looks, 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:48.480 you know that. 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:52.560 I don't have like a great example of a normal 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.280 looking for fish we got. I got the kanov our cream. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.679 He's a little messed up. He probably looked at vernal crayfish. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:09:58.600 Look probably something like this. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.120 He's got his claw. I was all busted. It happens, man, Yeah, 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:03.400 he's lost the claub again. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.719 See he's he's starting to grow, starting to grow that back, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:07.640 a little grown back. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:07.920 Yeah. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.199 Yeah, right there, that's got a little mini that's a 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:11.000 little mini claw. 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:12.719 Give it enough time, they'll grow it back. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:13.720 Yeah, no idea. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.760 Yeah, when they grow it back, it doesn't When they 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.960 grow the clauset back, it doesn't always come back the 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.360 same shape or size. Basically, they're trying to grow grow 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.360 it back as quickly as possible, because if if you're 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:26.240 a crayfish. 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:27.400 Everything needs to you got to defend. 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.120 Yeah, and this guy's got a really bad clauset. Yeah, 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:36.600 you're lucky you're in aquarium. Yeah, this is another Lacuni Canberra. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.320 So another mudbug species, Yeah, called the painted hand. We found. 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.600 This one is new. We've got a couple of species 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:44.280 that we so we're. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.520 Still growing our knowledge on on crawfish and where they occur, 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.040 and so up until a couple of months ago, we 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.400 did not know a couple of these species occurred in Mississippi. 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.079 Really, Yeah, how crazy is that? I don't know about y'all, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.000 But personally I tend to think, or at least hope 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.319 that we have a pretty decent grasp on species taxonomy 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.080 within our states, especially in freshwater aquatic species. But here 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.079 we are, in twenty twenty six, still finding new species 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.520 of crawfish that occur in the state of Mississippi, and frankly, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.680 I find it fascinating, so that, I mean, that's cool 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.840 to me entirely. Again, it's like you would think, at 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:21.800 twenty twenty six, we've got to get handle on all 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.280 this stuff. But it's honestly, it's pretty cool. You're still 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:25.160 finding new stuff. 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:26.960 Yeah, we uh crayfish. 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.480 I think crayfish have been neglected as like a. 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.760 You know, as an organism as a whole for their importance, 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.680 and it hasn't really been since two thousand and five, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.439 maybe the late nineties that we've really started to like, oh, 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.840 we should look at these things and where are where 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:46.960 do they care and how they how they are important 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:47.640 to the ek system. 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.760 These two species here, the pin and. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:55.080 Hand mudbug and the hatchet burrowing crayfish are our two 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:56.280 newest species to the. 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:56.959 State of Mississippi. 0:11:57.000 --> 0:12:00.160 We knew they were in Tennessee, but we went up 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.360 to North Tennessee or on the counties that that border 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.800 Tennessee Alabama and we found these two guys. 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:07.520 So that's cool. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.600 Yeah, so we're still growing our knowledge and uh, this 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.800 is an undescribed species right here. I've got a colleague 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.760 who works on trying to look at the genetics of crayfish. 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.240 Yeah, and see if they're see if. 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.000 They're they're different. And so that one is doesn't have 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:24.480 a name. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.520 Ut yet m yeah and unnamed. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:32.160 Okay, not only are we discovering new species occurring in 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.199 the state. But now I'm currently looking at a quote 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.120 new species that Calvin has in his crawfish tackle box 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.360 that is yet to be even described. Boy, I tell you, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:45.960 when I drove out to meet Calvin today, I planned 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.640 on learning a little bit more about crawfish and getting 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.720 to play around in the mud a bit. I had 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.120 no idea I would be getting to see all this 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.040 new science and even newly discovered species. That's the thing 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.560 about wildlife, man, there's always something new and enter around 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:01.319 the next corner. 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.040 No, No, that's cool. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.280 Yeah, it is really cool. That's that's what kind of 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:07.800 drew me to this field, is. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:09.120 There's just so much we don't know. 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.920 Oh man, there's the questions you've been asking that I 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:16.480 don't have answers for, and where these things occur. That's 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.760 what's what's so cool, is uh yea, there's a lot 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:20.640 to be discovered here. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:21.240 Yeah. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.800 Some of them even have bad raps too. I've we 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.679 just did a recent project doing morphological comparisons of a 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:34.120 sub genus of crayfishes up in the north eastern part 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.920 of the state, and they whenever they were discovered in 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.480 nineteen thirty six by a guy, it was all to 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.840 see just how to kill them, because they were all 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:48.440 viewed as crop pests because they burrowed down like from 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:50.800 how they would described like ten feet yeah, and then 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:52.720 they would all come up when these big rain events 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.720 and just like just walk through all these big fields agfields, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.839 and they were all considered agricultural us. But now we're 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.599 finding out that there's a lot of probable cryptodiversity within 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.199 those groups through some of the morphological comparisons and stuff. 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.120 But there's a lot of genetic work that needs to 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:10.679 be done. 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.960 To just kind of see the fascinating. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.280 As I listened to Calvin and as technician talk about 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.640 newly discovered species, questions about the animal that still have 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:20.840 yet to be answered, and some of the studies that 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.320 have been done strictly on more of a pest control mindset. 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.560 This might sound to touch out landish, but I'm honestly 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.880 reminded of the episode we did a while back on 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.200 the Gulf when we learned about how much we still 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.960 don't know about that area, and what studies have been 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.720 done have been focused on what we can gain or extract. Again, obviously, 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.080 I'm for sustainable use of natural resources, and lord knows, 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.920 I love a crawfish bowl. But I just think that 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.640 there's a lot more that this species has to offer, 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.040 and there's definitely a lot more that we don't know. 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.560 It's this is the thing that keeps coming up and 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.600 coming up with this show specifically. It's like we talked 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:58.920 and we figured this out early on. It's like you 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.360 can't appreciate some thing that you don't understand, right, So, 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.280 like you don't understand crawfish, right, apparently is there's a 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.440 lot left to be understood. Then you can just back out. 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:12.880 Those things are pests, right or yeah, they're just things 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:13.400 that make a. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:15.840 Or this is one this is a brown bug, and 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.680 they're everywhere and there's one species, right. I think that's 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.200 such a misnomer as everyone thinks that there's just one 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:23.200 one crawfish, right. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.120 Yeah, but crawfish is crawfish. 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:26.560 But they look so different, right. 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.160 You can go to a ditch and you're like, oh, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.200 that looks real, that looks real different. But the knowledge 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.360 isn't out there that you know, We've got so many 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:36.160 different kinds. 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.640 I tell you, just in these few minutes of discussion 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.000 or so, my curiosity for the humble small crayfish or 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.440 crawfish or whichever one you want to call it, has 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.040 done nothing but grow all these unknown facts, all these 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.280 numerous species. And I think it's time for myself and 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.480 these two gentlemen to do what we came to do 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.760 and see if we can dig up some crawfish from 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:00.320 out of this small prairie remnant that we are currently in. 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.160 Let me give a quick rundown on some general crawfish history, 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.160 if you will, before we go and get our hands 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:11.760 in the mud, so we can all have just a 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:18.080 little more context. Crawfish freshwater crustaceans that trace their ancestry 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.800 back to marine lobster like animals from all the way 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.240 back in the Palaeozoic era. Think about the Southern dinosaur 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.200 episode that we did kind of in that deep time frame, 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.680 is what we're talking The transition from saltwater to freshwater 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:35.320 happened multiple independent times, which is why the crawfish that 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.040 you would find in your average Mississippi ditch and the 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.240 ones that you would find in a creek in Australia 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.600 are actually descended from completely separate lineages. North American crawlfish 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.680 fossils go back roughly one hundred and sixty five to 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.400 two hundred million years, putting them on this continent well 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.960 before the first humans ever set foot here. Every crawfish 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.400 native to North America east of the continental Divide belongs 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.360 to a single family, Camberra day, and that family has 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:08.080 exploded in diversity across the southeast. North America is home 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:12.280 to roughly four hundred crawfish species, more than any other 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.439 continent on Earth, and the epicenter of that diversity is 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.640 right here in the Southeast. States like Tennessee, Alabama. Here 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.320 at home in Mississippi consistently rank among the most crawfish 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.399 rich places on the planet, and this probably has a 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.640 lot to do with why we're so infamous for crawfish 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.720 bulls shout out Louisiana. Ecologically, crawfish punch way above their weight. 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.240 They're omnivores, eating algae, aquatic insects, small fish, and just 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.600 about anything else they can get their claws on that'll 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.480 work for them. That makes them a critical link in 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:49.920 aquatic food webs, both as consumers and as prey. River otters, herons, bats, raccoons, mink, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.760 they all depend heavily on crawfish. Many species of crawfish 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.240 are also primary burrowers, which is what we're going to 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.800 try to dig up later today. Meaning they spend most 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.119 of their lives underground, which makes them important for soul 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.280 erration and water infiltration, even in upland habitats far from 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.640 permanent water. Okay, that's all the context we need. Let's 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.520 dig in the mud. You want to go, Yes, I 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.959 want to go dig up a crawfish. Can't say I've 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.280 ever done that. I have, but not the way we're 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:19.800 about to do it. 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:20.080 Yeah. 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:21.680 Yeah, the way I did it when I was twelve 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.399 was a lot more. Uh, I don't know, not as 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:25.720 advanced as what we're about to do. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:27.800 Trust me, I still do that stuff all the time. 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:29.719 And yeah, so if he's a knife. 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.240 We grabbed all of our gear, a large soul knife, 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.080 a hand powered water pump that closely resembles the type 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.040 of pump you would use to fill a bicycle tire, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.560 and large containers of water, and we head downhill towards 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.120 the large number of crawfish burrows that are scattered out 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.400 across the grassy area in close relation to a large creek. However, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:53.920 the first spot that we stop at, I was kind 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.360 of surprised at how far we were from the visible 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.920 water No, is it surprising it'd be that far from 0:18:58.920 --> 0:18:59.320 the creek. 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.240 Depends on where the water table lives. Okay, it's surprising. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.679 I've studied this this species. I studied this species last. 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:14.560 Year, yea, and we learned that the look up for 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.840 we are away from the creek, right, we're like one 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:19.920 hundred meters. 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.119 Away, yeah, and yards. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.119 Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty impressive. 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.640 And we're up on this slope right, How can how 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:30.240 can this crayfish be living up in what you think is. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.000 This really dry habitat? 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:37.040 Well, there's these perched water tables underneath, and this Jackson 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:40.280 Prairie clay that's you know, the the Yazoo clay people 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.879 talk about that's shifty, and well, it's great habitat for 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.840 crayfish because it holds moisture, and so they're there. 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.360 They can live in some really insane areas. 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.000 So compared to a lot of a lot of crayfish species, 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.000 it's pretty unusual to find them this high. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.560 But they're in high elevations compared to a lot of. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:19:59.760 A lot of different species. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.640 To your point, like, I know I've been out hunting before, yea, 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.360 and all of a sudden, like huh, crawfish whole way 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:06.800 out here. 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:08.239