Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for September 10, 2013

Homework for Alix: cook Pinchy up and eat him.

Were the crawdads Pinchy ate Pacifastacus leniusculus (which in CA and UK is also known to be invasive)?

Alix’s classmate looks a lot like a younger Andy.

Like I wonder, will this affect Alix’s attitude with the water.

How does teacher know that Pinchy was ‘fine’ in that lake?

Procambarus clarkii is native to the Gulf coast up as far north as Ohio & Illinois. So depending on where the lake was, it may well have been native to the area.

Bad, Pinchy! (Yes, I know he’s just doing what he does naturally.)

Bud o mine had a salt water tank, stocked w/fish caught in Tampa Bay(the body of water, not the city) He added a new fancy one, and it ate all the others…

Crayfish burp? Who knew?

Road trip!

Crawdad Days this weekend nearby in Colusa, California.

Time for Gumbo.

Pinchy needs his own comic. Love it Jan!

I just wanted to say thank you for bringing non-native species introduction into the spotlight. As a biologist, I don’t think many people think about what will happen after they dump their pet into the wild. Florida has all sorts of problems with non-natives out competing native species. Bravo!!!!! BTW, I love this comic :)

Wouldn’t that make Pinchy a cannibal?

This is bad!

really, crayfish eat other crayfish? Aren’t they nature’s decomposers [like bacteria] feeding on detritus I don’t see how this whole story line started??

they were still cryfish so it’s still canibalism and Clarkiis do eat eachother too.

The horror!

“Don’t forget the melted butter!” Yum… ;)

And I still don’t have an answer to my question of whether the crawdads Pinchy ate were Pacificastacus leniusculus — and of course, an underlying question to that (I just thought of it), how do Proc. clarkii and Paca. leniusculus interact when placed in the same habitat?

Naughty Pinchy!!