How the heck did this happen?

[Lassalot]

Ok, so I need a mystery solved. I have 4 tanks and 2 crawfish. The male crawfish lives in the 125G tank. The female crawfish lives in a 20G tank in a different room. Both have heavy glass lids (no openings). Neither have been in the same tank as the other in over 6 months.
Well, color me shocked when I saw the female crawfish now has eggs under her tail (fully berried)! She lives in a tank with only dwarf cherry shrimp, a few Amano shrimp, 2 plecos, and a bazillion snails. So how the heck did she get fertilized? Is it more likely she passed unfertilized eggs and they will just drop off?

 

[Caveden]

Could be self cloning, in my country people sell self cloning crayfish

 

[duanes]

Could be self cloning, in my country people sell self cloning crayfish

Agree, self cloning crawfish were very popular in the Milwaukee/Chicago area when I lived there.

 

[The Masked Shadow]

Probably asexual reproduction

 

[Deadeye]

Few theories:
1. It’s the asexually reproducing marble crayfish (doesn’t look like one) or any given crayfish with that mutation.
2. It’s infertile eggs.
3. It held sperm from a male for a long time and is now fertilizing eggs to hatch (most likely imo). This has happened to me. I had a male and female together for a day before separating. Months later, I found the female with eggs that eventually hatched (no offspring survived).

 

[Lassalot]

Thanks all! I had no idea crawfish could do that.

 

[Deadeye]

Thanks all! I had no idea crawfish could do that.

Me neither…then it happened lol.

This was the lone survivor in my batch, a mix between a cobalt blue female and red swamp male (both P. Alleni), which died due to a bad molt.

 

[Lassalot]

[QUOTE="Deadeye, post: 8377165, member:
3. It held sperm from a male for a long time and is now fertilizing eggs to hatch (most likely imo). This has happened to me. I had a male and female together for a day before separating. Months later, I found the female with eggs that eventually hatched (no offspring survived).
[/QUOTE]

I had read they could hold on to the sperm packets for months. She is very small offspring of a Thunderbolt and a red/blue crawfish. She was attacked by the male and lost most of her claws back 6+ months ago, so she got her own tank ever since then. I thought maybe that was too long ago but maybe not.

 

[Deadeye]

Good luck with it!
Welcome to the forum by the way!