le patron;3320655; said:
I kinda doubt it, where I found it is a very remote, small, (maybe 4 feet wide) creek. It is man made from a rainwater runoff pipe. But It could be possible. And this cray does not look like P. alleni
Wild blue crayfish caught, how rare?
- Thread starter Destroyer551
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I kinda doubt it, where I found it is a very remote, small, (maybe 4 feet wide) creek. It is man made from a rainwater runoff pipe. But It could be possible. And this cray does not look like P. alleni
From what I can see, you have at least one kind of Procambarus. If I recall correctly, different members of this genus have been known to hybridize (or at least attempt to), so it's not a given that the male and female belong to the same species.
The most famous of all "red crayfish" (widely aquacultured, widely invasive, sold for aquariums and bait) is P. clarkii. However, other FL crayfish display reddish pigmentation too; having looked at the structure of the male's claws, I think you have something other than P. clarkii on your hands.
Although it's best known in the aquarium trade as a selectively bred morph (the "electric blue lobster"), Procambarus alleni is actually endemic to Florida. Though your female does look an awful lot like some of the "blue lobsters" I've seen in the pet trade, that's not a sure bet either ... blue mutants undoubtedly crop up from time to time in other Florida species as well.
Some photos of P. alleni (includes what looks like a wild type, but I can't say for sure whether reddish populations exist in nature)
If you'd like to consider other candidates, here's a list of crayfish native to Florida. I'd take an especially close look at the various Procambarus spp. (good luck).
The most famous of all "red crayfish" (widely aquacultured, widely invasive, sold for aquariums and bait) is P. clarkii. However, other FL crayfish display reddish pigmentation too; having looked at the structure of the male's claws, I think you have something other than P. clarkii on your hands.
Although it's best known in the aquarium trade as a selectively bred morph (the "electric blue lobster"), Procambarus alleni is actually endemic to Florida. Though your female does look an awful lot like some of the "blue lobsters" I've seen in the pet trade, that's not a sure bet either ... blue mutants undoubtedly crop up from time to time in other Florida species as well.
Some photos of P. alleni (includes what looks like a wild type, but I can't say for sure whether reddish populations exist in nature)
If you'd like to consider other candidates, here's a list of crayfish native to Florida. I'd take an especially close look at the various Procambarus spp. (good luck).
Not P. alleni, not the wild type either.
Of course it's not P. clarkii. Hmm...what could it be?
Pics would help, but not many people have pictures of uncommon crayfish.
Of course it's not P. clarkii. Hmm...what could it be?
Pics would help, but not many people have pictures of uncommon crayfish.
No, there are two questions here: (1) the identity of the red male crayfish and (2) the identity of your blue female crayfish. Like I said, the answers to (1) and (2) aren't necessarily the same.Destroyer551;3320913; said:
When I mentioned wild type, I was referring to the wild type of P. alleni (as opposed to the selectively bred blue one) while considering possible answers for (1). It's possible that a reddish form of P. alleni exists in the wild:
(Caveat: Chris is usually quite good about these things, but the poor image quality makes it difficult to confirm the ID)
At any rate, coloration and subjective "looks like" impressions aren't surefire indications of anything, taxonomy-wise. Many species are very variable (even when we don't consider occasional mutants like the blue female you caught).
Case in point -- here's yet another reddish cray, P. acutus, that also happens to occur in Florida:
We could go on like this for days.
A much more accurate way of identifying crayfish from the eastern part of the U.S. (including FL) would be flipping them over and photographing the gonopods (male reproductive organs), which differ between most species in predictable ways. However, this still wouldn't give us the answer to question (2) since females lack gonopods.
Do you have any specific reasons why your blue female couldn't be a P. alleni? Do the claws look different? Is it just that it's darker than most of the ones in the aquarium trade? If the second reason's why, you should remember that the P. alleni sold as "electric blue lobsters" are a specific captive-bred strain that won't necessary look identical to wild individuals of the same species that display mutant coloration.
Anyways, I think I've seen blue P. alleni that look quite similar to what you have (again, a subjective judgment):
Rare blues almost certainly show up in other kinds of Florida crays, so -- once more -- I can't say for sure based on the photos.
(Blue, white, and normally-colored P. clarkii)
Might be a good idea to ask around on crayfish-specific boards like bluecrayfish.com. Getting direct overhead shots and giving the location in Florida where you found your crays might help narrow things down.
veneer you beat me to it 
first one is the blue one you caught, and 2nd one is the same just different color. different from the ones you were catching before and yes, crays can interbreed among different species, and i thinks you are very lucky to have that happen 
the crays where i live have huge claws and would shred p. alleni so i cant interbreed them
first one is the blue one you caught, and 2nd one is the same just different color. different from the ones you were catching before and yes, crays can interbreed among different species, and i thinks you are very lucky to have that happen the crays where i live have huge claws and would shred p. alleni so i cant interbreed them
You guys are exactlly right, the only reason why I thought the male wasn't P.alleni (suspected the female was) is because the claws threw me off on a quick glance. But on a closer inspection, the color, shape of the claws and the cray are very similar. So what you guys are saying is that I may be dealing with a red form of P.alleni, and a red form that has a blue mutation? At least that's the way I look at it. Also, because the male is red, and the female is blue, how many of the offspring will take after the mother? This usually happens on the third gen right? I may sell a few of her blue offspring too, how much would that go for? Thanks for the help guys.
I once had a Red Blue cross and none of the offspring were blue. It took atleast 2 more breeds to get anything you could call true blue, and even they weren't as blue as the original mother.
