Freshwater Crayfish

Anonymous Author

Collection: A Literary Field Guide to the Swamp, Book 6

July 28, 2026

Prompt:

Parastacidae

Biological Overview

Habitat
Shallow, clean, slow moving water

Diet
Decaying leaves, plants, and dead animal matter

Role in Ecosystem
Omnivore

Behavior
Active at night and hiding during the day

Human Impact

Humans impact freshwater crayfish habitats by destruction, pollution, climate change, and overharvesting. Humans also impact climate change that causes droughts, wildfires, and flooding; this can minimize the crayfish habitat and lead to mass mortality.

Creative Exploration

Pov: day in the life as a freshwater crayfish
First my annoying alarm wakes me up from my peaceful slumber. Next, I wake up and look in the mirror and see something so scary I scream! Guess what I saw?! My morning bedhead!
Where does life take me, you may ask? Back to my bed! This is because my sister wanted me to go on a morning swim with her, but I don’t care about her, so I left her for my bed. Around 1 p.m., I got up (for real this time) and guess what I chose to do? Eat mac and cheese!! Which happens to be my favorite meal. For the rest of the day, I did what I wanted.
How does my amazing day end, you ask? I took a shower and went back to my amazing slumber.

Mackenzie Snyder, Sydnee Naylor, Addy Dellinger

Book 6

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Tags

Pee Dee/ Grand Strand

Anonymous Author

This fellow Communal Pen-er has chosen not to share their personal information by remaining anonymous. In Communal Pen workshops, sharing is always optional, as is sharing your name with your writings. We appreciate the courage it takes to share our stories, whether or not we add our names to them or not. If you feel that this is your writing and would like to add your name, leave a comment or contact our team directly at communalpen@coastal.edu. Thank you, and happy writing!