Beloved Blue Pet
Luminous blue domesticated crayfish
Last April I visited city ecologist Martin Melchers at his home in Amsterdam East. We talked about the Amsterdam crayfish plague and other unsuspecting creatures lurking in the canals. Then he showed me his remarkable blue crayfish which he kept in a large storage tub filled with water and rocks. Only one in every thousand (usually reddy-brown) Louisianna crayfish is blue. It’s a pigment variation similar to being albino. I was so smitten with this blue pet that Martin immediately gave her to me as a momento vivandi. He had filmed her for his the filming of his book on Amsterdam’s wildlife Haring in het Ij.
I took her home, fed her cooked potatoes, occasionally an earthworm and sometimes a shaving of fish. Although I’m not usually one for domestic pets, she was rather an exotic thing attracting attention from people not usually inclined to decapods. A few weeks we caught a midget Louisianna crayfish one that was too small to eat, so we decided to put him in the tank with her. Week by week he grew until they started to display some affection. It looked as though we’d soon have our own kitchen invasion. However, when on holiday, the beloved blue pet escaped and didn’t survive her adventure. Strangely though her blue legacy lived on — the other ‘normal’ crayfish started turning blue. Perhaps out of mourning? Who knows. As Martin Melchers says, nature has its inexplicable fascinating ways, just enjoy it!