Pond Boss Forums PHOTO GALLERY Image Gallery Crawdads as I see them.

The colors of this crawdad are real but enhanced.

Incredible photo, John!

It's always a treat seeing your great photos!

Thanks for sharing!

Your pic is much clearer than these.



See this from the archives

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post206387

John good picture of the crayfish. From your one picture, I can't see very many necessary features, but I think it is probably an older individual of the big water crayfish scientific name - Cambarus robustus; a common one in Indiana. If not C.robustus probably some other specie of the genus Cambarus maybe C.bartonii.

Was that cray in a bowl for his cameo?

Bill is that one of the species that is lumped into the "Northern" variety noted in the pic above from Aquanic? Seems to have the same general visible traits.

Northern crayfish (aka virile crayfish) belongs to a different genus and species (Orconectes virilis) than the big water crayfish. The northern crayfish generally has longer and more narrow 'pinchers' 'claws' chela/dactyl than the one pictured by John. Also the rostrum of John's cray is not like that of the northern crayfish.
http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/ansrp/ANSIS/html/orconectes_virilis_northern_crayfish.htm

The name of big water crayfish that I used was purely a guess based on some of the dorsal features that I could see in the picture. Close examination especially a good clear ventral view is often needed to verify names of crayfish unless there are some obvious visual characteristics present. Also it is usually best to use a male for more positive identification purposes.

This Crayfish came out of Round Lake which is located in the tri lakes area of central north Indiana. It was captured by my cousin and a photo was taken of it in a plastic bucket. I asked my cousin if she would mind me enhancing the colors and posting it. She said it was the biggest crayfish she ever saw in Round Lake and she has lived there since the 1960's. She returned the crayfish to the lake after photographing it. I used to have a cottage on Round back in the 70's with many happy memories of sailing and canoeing.

John, Thank you for posting the pictures of these craws, the one enhanced picture u posted is a great pic for sure. Your pics is why I felt it might be time to post my crawdad experience in another thread.

Thanks and keep them pics coming

Tracy