A small freshwater crustacean that looks like a tiny lobster and lives in streams and lakes.
From Middle French 'ecrevisse,' possibly influenced by 'crab.' The word entered English around the 1400s and seems to be a mix of 'crab' and 'fish' in meaning and etymology.
Crayfish are incredible ecosystem engineers—they build burrows that create habitats for other creatures, filter the water, and their populations collapse when streams are polluted, making them nature's canary in the coal mine.
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