Have you ever eaten a “mudbug”? I have, and they are delicious! In fact, a friend used to trap for them in the 30-mile canal, and he would bring me 100 or so at a time. Oh, sorry, “mudbug” is another name for crayfish, or crawdad, and if you are in Louisiana, they are called crawfish.
We would place them in a cold-water tank for a few days to get the mud out of the “mudbugs,” and then boil them with some crab boil and eat them. You eat the tail like a lobster, and in fact, “freshwater lobster” is another name for them.
Mudbugs are crustaceans. As such they have 10 legs, three body segments (head, thorax, and abdomen similar to insects), a protective “carapace” that covers the head and thorax, and two pairs of antennae and a pair of eyes.
The large “claw” on the front pair of legs is called th…