Critters from the wild end up in all
sorts of obscure places far from home. Somehow, this little crawdad
made his way from a
goldfish farm in Texas and
to a store holding tank for a national pet store. When he was
discovered, this little critter was
adopted and I took him
home. After all, I've had crawdads before and you just have to have at
least one in your tank!As you can
tell, Clawdio, has made
himself quite at home in a grecian urn ornament. He's roughly 3 inches
long and about as big around
as a quarter. Because he is
from Texas, I am not sure how big Clawdio will get.
Why the name Clawdio? My
wife coined the name and I altered the spelling. The name 'Claudio' is
a frequently used name
by William Shakespeare to
populate his plays. "Much Ado About Nothing" is out favorite
Shakespearean plays and naturally,
'Claudio' is a character.
Perverting the name 'Claudio' gave us the name 'Clawdio' which is more
fitting for a crawdad.
Clawdio is residing in a 29
gallon tank that is also home to mollies and platies. We were
concerned at first for the safety of
the other fish because
mollies and platies like to sleep on the bottom. The problem was easy
to solve as Clawdio's tank
mates would have to learn
to stay out of his way, or else. After all, it's not like mollies and
platies breed slow! So, far,
after a few days, we don't
seem to have lost any fish.
During the night of November 13, 2004, Clawdio molted for the first time
since we have had him. He seems to have almost doubled
in size,
especially his pinchers, or pleopods. I have not been able to label Clawdio's species, but I will continue to work on that.
He is staying well hidden due to his fresh molt and I will take some pics when he comes out
of hiding.
Check with Clawdio
regularly to see how things are doing with him.
