Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for September 13, 2013

I knew the “crawmom” joke was coming.

I like it. Jan Eliot is a genius.

Many a crawdad make a mighty meal.…As I said: No garlic! Only a peace of butter and a pinch of salt.

Good one! I like this arc too. It’s new and makes a good point.

With crawdads and crawmoms it doesn’t work the same way as with humans. But it takes it’s time too.So I guess she was already pregnant when she was picked up in the lake at the beginning of the story.Crawmoms have at the underside of their tails dozens of extensions which look like little pincers. To this pincers stick the eggs and stay there until the little crawchildren are so far developed that they are able to make it for themselfs.

The strip is suggesting that she was already “pregnant” when she was taken from the lake. I think that doesn’t make much sense since it is implied that many days elapsed (and we are talking crawfish here). I think that maybe she was being… eh… “naughty” with some of the smaller, local males. That sometimes happens between closely related species… long story. Another alternative is something someone mentioned a few days back: apparently some species of “crawmoms” can reproduce by parthenogenesis.

I like this arc! I thought Erma was a guest teacher. I didn’t know she was the permanent.

Are we talking about the Signal Crayfish? Giving a lot of trouble in the UK. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_crayfish)

Oh boy!

Why so hostile? Evie did make a mistake, and while it was a honest mistake it doesn’t strictly absolve her of the consequences. Just because you aren’t aware of a law, doesn’t make you immune against the consequences of breaking it. Also, since when is protecting the environment a bad thing deserving of scorn?

Talk about being in the doghouse.

To the complainers: It takes a while to tell a story when using 2 to 4 panels per day. I think the story is progressing nicely.

Way to go grandma! Owning up to a mistake takes guts

Given that Pinchy had removed a lot of other crayfish from the creek (were all of these actually native? There are at least FOUR species in North America which have been transplanted — just WITHIN this continent — which have become invasive including Red Swamp and Signal), wouldn’t it have made sense to release her back so the crayfish population (albeit wrong species) could be re-established there?