Crayfish belong to which class

Grasshoppers and crayfish, along with spiders, scorpions, lobsters, crabs and barnacles, belong to the phylum Arthropoda. Shared grasshopper and crayfish characteristics include chitinous exoskeletons, jointed legs, segmented bodies, compound eyes, digestive systems in a body cavity, nervous systems and open circulatory systems. They reproduce with eggs and molt as they grow.

Grasshoppers and crayfish have two genders. As invertebrates, arthropods lack backbones. Instead, arthropods have hard exoskeletons and jointed legs, antenna and other appendages. Most arthropods have a chitinous exoskeleton to protect their bodies, although some, like barnacles and crabs, excrete calcium carbonate to make a harder shell.

Because of the exoskeleton , arthropods must molt to grow. A new exoskeleton begins to develop beneath the hard outer exoskeleton, and then the outer exoskeleton splits. The arthropod wiggles out of the old shell, and the new exoskeleton expands. The new exoskeleton then hardens. Segmented bodies also typify arthropods. Insects have three segments head, thorax and abdomen while many crustaceans have two body segments cephalothorax , which is fused head and thorax, and abdomen.

Many arthropods have good vision due to well-developed compound eyes. Many also have excellent chemosensory abilities, meaning they sense and respond to chemicals in their environment. Taste and smell are two types of chemosensory stimuli. Internally, arthropods have a complete digestive system with a coelom , or body cavity.

Arthropods have a large ventral nerve cord connecting their brains with a network of nerves. Arthropods have open circulatory systems, meaning their hearts pump blood out through vessels, but the blood seeps back into the heart through pores. Arthropods, unlike most invertebrates, have mostly striated muscles similar to vertebrate skeletal muscles.

These muscles give arthropods greater strength and mobility. Most arthropods have two separate sexes. Many arthropods go through a larval stage before undergoing metamorphosis to emerge in their adult form. Grasshoppers belong to the class Insecta. Insects comprise 75 percent of identified animal species. Insects are found in almost all environments except deep sea habitats. Most insects, however, live on land.

Evidence suggests that some populations of cave-dwelling species in the genus Orconectes may live for at least 20 years.

Crayfishes occupy a wide range of habitats: rivers, creeks, swamps, sloughs, subterranean creeks, springs, ephemeral ponds, reservoirs, ditches, and wet field. The primary life-history trait of crayfishes that determines the habitats in which they can live is their propensity for burrowing. Crayfishes have been classified into three categories of burrowers: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Primary burrowers Figure 3 A will emerge from their burrows to forage for food or look for mates during wet spring or fall months and on warm, humid nights. Their burrows are usually less complex than those of primary burrowers and differ from those in that they usually have a connection or tunnel leading to a permanent water body Figure 3 D. Tertiary burrowers Figure 3 E are those species that only occasionally retreat into simple burrows during times of drought or when females tend eggs.

They usually inhabit permanent flowing rivers and creeks and build shallow vertical shafts into the substrates. As crayfish excavate their burrows they will push the loose soil or mud up and out of the burrow opening.

This activity will usually lead to the formation of a chimney rising several inches above the ground. They will plug the opening with mud during dry or cold months and remain inactive for weeks or even months. Figure 3: Morphology of crayfish burrows: A, that of a primary burrowing species; B, C, D, those of a secondary burrowing species; E, that of a tertiary burrowing species from Hobbs Crayfish respire with gills and to extract oxygen from the air their gills must remain moist they can stay out of the water for up to 72h in those conditions.

Burrowing crayfishes will usually dig vertically into the substrate to reach the water table, thus allowing them to colonize habitats with semi-permanent standing water such as low-lying ditches, shallow ponds, wet fields, and prairies , or to survive times of drought in more permanent aquatic habitats. Historically treated as opportunistic omnivores, crayfishes have been shown to eat a variety of food items, both living and dead.

These include aquatic and terrestrial vegetation, plant detritus, insects, snails, and aquatic crustaceans e. Crayfish play an important role in ecosystem function by consuming detritus and vegetation and converting that material into animal protein. That protein is then made available to a wide range of other aquatic and terrestrial organisms such as predaceous insects, fishes, birds, and mammals. Over different species of animals are known to feed on crayfish.

Engineers are organisms that directly or indirectly alter the physical state of biotic or abiotic components of the environment; they maintain, create, alter, or destroy habitats for other organisms in the environment. Crayfishes can be found on every continent in all type of aquatic or semi-aquatic habitat, Antarctica. They are considered as invasive species in Europe, Asia, and even in the United states.

As the best representative of invasive crayfish, the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii is among the most translocated invertebrates in the world. Although found in Northern Europe, its populations are not expending anymore. Contrariwise, in Southern Europe, the red swamp crayfish is expending and replacing native crayfish at an alarming rate. In Africa, it is during a biological control attempt of snails that P. Whereas, in the United States, it is believed that anglers using the red swamp crayfish as bait introduced it to states away from its native area, the Mississippi river.

The Bottlebrush crayfish, Barbicambarus cornutus , occurs in creeks and rivers in the Green River drainage of north-central Tennessee and west-central Kentucky. It is unique among all species in the family Cambaridae in that it has dense clumps of long setae along the entire length of its antennae.

Two color forms are known: one with large dark brown patches over the entire body including the chelipeds; the second form lacks splotches. Both forms have an overall base color olive green to brown. The maximum size known for the species in Kentucky is Crawfish has become accepted in American English, especially in the context of regional dining. Crawfish are usually less tough and more subtle compared to shrimp, on most occasion it is often a combination of crab and shrimp.

It basically has a sweet taste with a little bit of salt and mineral flavour. It is safe to say that crayfish has a distinctive taste. The catch is predominantly of the three species listed above. The African dried shrimps are sun dried and not smoked. Ground African Crayfish is not much available in markets in North America, but can be purchased at our online store.

Dried Crayfish are exported from Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Our niche spans across North America and the global market.