Does anyone know whether crayfish are normally cannibalistic? I know lobsters and crabs are, but some things tell me cray fish aren't.

For example, I once saw a pet shop with crayfish of varied sizes in a small (ten-gal) aquarium. No aggression was seen. In a creek near where I live, I saw a large dead crayfish that had been there for a while, but nothing had touched it. Shouldn't the crayfish come out at night the way crabs do and scavenge?

I caught two crayfish and am keeping them together as an experiment, but does anyone here have any experience with this? One is 45 mm the other is 25 mm. Despite what I've seen, crayfish should cannibalize, like all their relatives, right?

The crayfish I caught (and the dead one I saw) were O. rusticus, a highly successful invasive species in North America -- maybe a reluctance to cannibalize is why populations of this species out-compete native crayfish so quickly and over populate, decimating stream plant life?

Any experience with social behavior among crayfish in aquarium settings?

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