Marbled Crayfish

Artist's (mine) rendition of the
marbled crayfish

First of all, hello and welcome to my blog “Unwind the Helix”. The goal of this blog is loosely to discuss recent events in the world of biology, genetics, and evolution.

While working on a full length piece on conservation and our role in the ecosystem, I came across a news article discussing the marbled crayfish, “Geneticists Unravel Secrets of Super-invasive Crayfish”. The main reason for this sensationalist title is due to the origin of this species and the unique traits they picked up.

Photograph: Fredrik von Erichsen

It is thought that this relatively new species was first observed/ created in the 90’s in a tank in Germany when two distant crayfish species accidentally happened to breed. The resultant mixed crayfish has three sets of chromosomes, as opposed to humans and most other animals (tripoid vs diploid), and is able to breed by itself, a trait called parthenogenesis. Because it can effectively clone itself, it poses a substantial threat as an invasive species in parts of Europe and especially in Madagascar, where it is thriving with the help of locals. Since arriving in Madagascar in around 2007, the marbled crayfish has extended its war front into the interior of the small island country and is out-competing the local crayfish species. Conservationists see this invasion as a threat to local biodiversity and have been urging locals to refrain from helping them but the farmer instead put them in their rice fields to grow free crayfish snackies. Nobody can stop the unstoppable tide of marbled crayfish snackies.

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