Beloved Blue Pet
Ghost blue domesticated Louisianna crayfish
When visiting city ecologist Martin Melchers at his home in Amsterdam East last April to talk about crayfish and other unsuspecting creatures lurking in the canals, he showed me his pet blue crayfish which he kept in a large storage tub filled with water and rocks. Among the reddy-brown coloured Louisianna crayfish one in every few thousand is blue. It’s a pigment variation similar perhaps to being albino. I was so smitten with her 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 flesh 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 decopods. A few weeks we caught a midget Louisianna crayfish one that was too small to eat, so we decided to put him with her. Week by week he grew until they started to display some affection. Pretty soon we will have our own kitchen invasion! However, on being on holiday, the beloved blue pet escaped and did not survive her adventure. Afterwards the other normal reddy-brown crayfish who we subsequently called ‘It’ started turning blue. Perhaps out of mourning? who knows. As Martin Melchers says, nature has its fascinating ways, just enjoy it!