Blue Animals

I don't know if this is the right place to post this but here goes.

When I was a child I was playing in the woods with one of my friends. This was in eastern Ohio. We were playing near a mud hole. My friend pointed to what appeared to me to be the blue cap from a bic pen. She said, “look at that strange crab.” I told her it wasn't a crab it was part of a pen and I picked it up to prove it to her. I was shocked to see it was a small blue crayfish exactly the same color as the blue cap to a bic pen and about the same size. I don't think this is any kind of cryptozoological creature but I do think it might be something rare or an anomaly of some kind.

I 've since tried looking for information on it but I haven't been able to find anything that fits. I can find information about blue crayfish but they are always large and only tinted blue or a light shade of blue. What I saw was small (about an inch or so long) and was a very uniform shade of blue much like this color.

I seem to remember hearing something about blue animals and how they don't usually survive long because they have a hard time hiding from predators but I can't recall if they are blue due to some kind of anomaly similar to albinism or something else.

I'm hoping someone here knows what this little blue creature was or knows about blue animals in general.

Yes there's blue crayfish...just do a search on Google, you'll probably get a bunch of responses....because I remember seeing them also...and it's about that color you said there.

Originally posted by laiguana
Yes there's blue crayfish...just do a search on Google, you'll probably get a bunch of responses....because I remember seeing them also...and it's about that color you said there.

I'll second that. They're also known as "crawdads" in some places, and they're actually pretty common.
Some reading material:
Article

There's also a whole site deidcated to them, although I get a time-out from the site, so it may not be up anymore:
www.bluecrayfish.com...

I had a huge crawdad population in a big fish tank (I fed them to my other fish). Many multiple generations cyled through there. They all started out the common brick red color but as they "evolved" they turned bluer and bluer, until they hit that electric blue. Very pretty.

On a side note, you should see an Oscar swimming around with 2 claws and 2 antenas sticking out of it's mouth!

Living in lobster country I usually hear a story about once a year about a blue lobster. They are fairly rare, maybe 1 out of every 1-2 million lobster. The blue is caused by a genetic defect, I think the defect has something to do with excessive amounts of protein.

I sure is probably the same thing for crayfish.

Thanks for the info everybody. I saw many crayfish as a child but never another blue one. I guess the blue ones fair better in captivity.

BTW Whargoul I LOVE Oscars! I used to have a pair when I was in my teens. They're such great fish. One of the few that seem to have personalities all their own. I never fed them live food though, just couldn't bring myself to do that. I guess I'm a bit of a softy. Anyway, thanks again for the info.

Mitzella