Pictures with my camera always turn out very bright so I took a low quality video and used a flashlight =) I dont seem to know how to insert a you tube video so here is a link.
Nice surprise about this shorter form. Can you tell us what it is you are talking/writing about?
Has any info. about this shorter form been posted before (and i just missed it)?
I bought these september 2011 of last year so the one in the video is about a year and a month old now. I am not sure but I think the blue is from the purina sinking catfish food I feed them. Its neat how they start out brownish/olive (sometimes blue but not often) and then about the same time as they start getting berried they molt and are blue and usually stay that way.
They are cloning crayfish. All of the original ones I bought are female and get berried. There was a short time when I was uncertain when one of my biggest crayfish (the one in the pic) took a long time to produce the first berries. Another thing... I think claws get bigger when they are not disturbed and have more time after a molt to stay in that "inflated" state before the shell hardens.
EDIT: here is a pic of the same crayfish a few months earlier.
Not all are blue. Some say it comes with age, others say it seems to run in certain "families". You can buy them off aquabid. Make sure they are legal where you are. If you specifically want a blue cray, go for an electric blue.
in my colony, some individuals will turn blue and stay that way for a while. then revert back to the drab brown. i have no idea why. they all get the same foods and live in the same tank. but some will turn blue while others dont. and they never seem to stay blue. its not genetics because these are all clones. identical dna.