Researchers discover giant crayfish species right under their noses (Tenn., 'Bama)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ^ | January 19, 2011 | Unknown

[RobRoy]

A friend of mine and I used to get a 5 gallon bucket, use a bungee cord to wrap a styrofoam layer around it and fill it half full with water. We’d then put on those leather “work” gloves we got at the Boeing surplus center. Then we would snorkel the south end of Lake Washington (the seattle area) and collect 80 to 100 crawfish, take ‘em home, and have a great feast with butter and beer.

Catching them yourself was half the fun.

[piroque]

Will it survive in the rice paddies of Louisiana?

Not if I see it first,,,mmmmmm

[Snickering Hound]

The only reason I can think of why it hadn’t been “discovered” yet is to avoid it being declared an endangered species by the Feds.

[vetvetdoug]

Damn!! Those things are twenty miles from here. I stay on the Tennessee River at Pickwick and never seen one that big.

[Southron Patriot]

I live in Decatur, Alabama and we have been eating them for years. My Grandfather told me that a old Cherokee Indian with whom he hung around with as a boy learning how to make a Bow and Arrows etc. told him that the giant crayfish were great to eat and that his people had been trapping them for a long, long time.

I have personally seen them get nearly 12”. They are very fast and you have to have a trap/net to catch them. There very good boiled.

This may be a secret to the Scientist but not to those who grew up around the Tenn. River here in Alabama!

[TweetEBird007]

My college room mate’s dad and uncles and aunts had houses on
Shoals creek that they lived in, in the summer. We made several trips up there when in school in late 50’s and early
60’s and later until he died a couple of years ago.

[Fletcher J]

Decatur is a nice town. My mother’s family is from Decatur, so I’ve been there often to visit.

I sure like to get some Whitt’s BBQ when I’m there, and Bob Gibsons! I smoke some good BBQ myself, so these days I think mines the best. But, it’s worth eating the second best, when you don’t have to be the one to make it... ;) I’m always in Decatur for our family reunion on Memorial day weekend, and we generally also go to the hot air balloon festival.

Fletcher J

[paulycy]

[decimon]

I live in Decatur, Alabama and we have been eating them for years.

That's what I figured. Barbicambarus was formerly known as, 'ats a big 'un.'

[Ole Okie]

Hey, that’s a big old crawdad!!

[Hotmetal]

Doing it right in Oak Ridge, LA.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon.

• Giant crayfish found in Tennessee is new species