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17 its hands out of its gloves, as it were, and come out of its old clothes, still remains indirectly attached to the mother since its telson is fast to its old suit and this is not broken but continuous with the gloves, or claw skins." In this way, they can molt and not loose contact with their mother. Now they are around 4.5 mm long. Through these first two stages, the larva is mostly thorax and head with a tiny tail that ends in a point. After about six days they are ready to molt into their third stage. The third molt takes only a few minutes and it is at this time that the physical connection to the mother is broken. The antenna and tail fan are now developed and the juvenile now looks like a miniature adult. Now about 8 mm long, they remain with their mother for another week, crawling about on the egg cases and shed skins. They may occasionally leave the mother on short excursions in the outside world but always return. After eight days, most will leave momma and begin their own lives. They will molt into their fourth stage in about 18 days at a size of 12 mm and into their fifth stage in another 17 days at 15 to 18 mm. Females may breed for their first time at the end of their first summer of growth. Mating was seen in October when females were only 4 ½ months old and 50-62 mm long. 7 Estimating the fecundity of the female can be done in one of three ways. One is the dissection of the female and counting the number of yolked eggs in the ovaries. This counts every egg that could be laid and is potential fecundity. A second way is by counting the number of eggs that are attached to the pleopods. This deducts eggs that weren't laid and is the realized fecundity. Finally, you can count the number of independent juveniles. This deducts for eggs that didn't hatch or were lost and is actual fecundity. There can be a 58% loss between potential and actual fecundities for Calico crayfish. 220 One researcher actually counted the ovarian eggs (potential fecundity) in 106 females and egg counts (realized fecundity) on an additional 126. The number of eggs in the ovaries ranged from 76 to 528 and actual egg counts ranged from 11 to 474. The loss of eggs varied widely between the two methods but, overall, averaged 28%. 79 The number of eggs depends on crayfish size and, as one would expect, larger crayfish produced more eggs. For instance, one study found Calico crayfish had an average of 84 eggs on first spawn and 195 for the second spawn. 79, 210, 226 FOOD AND FEEDING Crayfishes have long been considered to be omnivorous opportunists, eating whatever they can find. This idea had its origins in the pioneering work of Huxley 119 where he stated that "few things in the way of food are amiss to the crayfish, living or dead, fresh or carrion, animal or vegetable, it is all one". Crayfishes make their living at several levels including herbivore,