This New Species of Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Threatening Europe, Asia, and Africa

Before about 25 years ago, the species simply did not exist. A single drastic mutation (due to polluted Texas freshwater ponds) in a single crayfish produced the marbled crayfish in an instant. What chemicals caused its mutation are currently unknown, what factors lead to its creation are unknown. All is known is that it originated in Texas, and mutated into a self replicating animal due to unknown chemical forces on its reproductive system from exposure to its habitat.

The mutation made it possible for the creature to clone itself, and now it has spread across much of Europe and gained a toehold on other continents. In Madagascar, where it arrived about 2007, it now numbers in the millions and threatens nearly all native fresh water life.

“We may never have caught the genome of a species so soon after it became a species,” said Zen Faulkes, a biologist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, who was not involved in the new study.

Other urls found in this thread:

nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/science&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
scientificamerican.com/article/how-humans-shape-evolution-other-species/
nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0467-9
nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4168/2
sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/aquarium-accident-may-have-given-crayfish-dna-take-over-world
youtube.com/watch?v=bZnygvRRmPE
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3061174/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

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this is really cool

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Source: nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/science&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront

It's not really cool. It's a reminder of how much pollution can fuck up an ecosystem beyond killing it. It can mutate an entirely new species capable of reproductive cloning without sex, that soon goes on to terrorize freshwater ecosystems as an invasive species throughout the world.

thats cool you dumbass

do they taste good tho

That's horrifying, but incredibly cool at the same time. Could these things be used for agricultural purposes?

Invasive species driving other freshwater ecosystems to have endangered species, an animal created through toxic chemicals, isn't cool, actually.

That's pretty cool mate. That's some sci-fi horror shit right there.

nuclear bombs are bad but theyre still cool

The article also says that species like this have been around before (also there are others even right now) but they usually don't last very long because cloning makes them extremely vulnerable to being wiped out by parasites plus they have virtually no genetic adaptability of their own since they're all copies of the same organism.
As it stands they're just one of MANY invasive species wreaking havoc on the planet's ecosystems, but they don't look noticeably more catastrophic than the rest.

Real Shin Godzilla shit

They can reproduce hundreds and hundreds of offspring per individual (the same as itself, durable, aggressive, and hardy, with little flaws), resulting in their expansive overpopulation over most invasive species.

Do they taste good?

Heat map of their rapid spread in Madagascar alone

are they all clones of the original or are there multiple… strains? genomes?

All clones of the original one female. All of them are genetically the same. There are no differences between them.

wouldnt that make them really susceptible to genetic disease?

Or a virus

Now try to imagine what we don't know what kind of life forms these fucking Texas cesspools are creating

yeah i wonder how many new species have been created and not discovered yet. fascinating

Yeah, but give them time to get settled in new environments and parasites will start to target them and then they're basically fucked. I'm not trying to downplay this, on an evolutionary scale it's still a very long time, but I mean Earth-chan is getting savagely raped by a million things I don't see what's so unsettling about this one in particular.

Apparently not. They're succeeding where it seemed impossible to succeed. They have little weakness to viruses or parasites, or even genetic disorders. They're basically just self replicating machines almost. Scientists haven't the slightest clue what the fuck caused its existence, but now have to come up with a plan to deal with its populations.

Because some dumb Texas asshole scooped them up from the local place (that happened to be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles polluted by chemicals)l, sold it to some dumb Kraut, who sold it elsewhere. And due to how fast they reproduce, the market came in, and they started selling like hot cakes.

But the owners couldn't handle that many fucking crayfish suddenly just exploding in their tanks, so they flushed them or released them.

But they all survived and infiltrated local ecosystems, pushing a lot of life out of the way. They're even in cities now. In the sewers or rivers of certain areas of Europe. To lakes in Africa.

All because some dumbshit dumped a certain combination of chemicals in a pond that created what scientists cannot fully explain. At least their origins.

Basically Texas is so fucking polluted that it has managed to be the origin of species for a Crayfish Shin Godzilla

Here is an interesting article for you
scientificamerican.com/article/how-humans-shape-evolution-other-species/

After human's go extinct our impact on life on Earth will be felt for probably a hundred million years and beyond

We have already left our mark on this world. As long as there is life on this planet our legacy will continue.

I hope it tastes good

no thanks

Earth will more than likely be Venus 2.0 at that point.

Here's more from Nature on the study on the marbled crayfish that was released last May

nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0467-9

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The Krauts did this…….

but did it taste good

Why, why, why, oh why, would you ever, ever do this.

It might.

that's pretty incredible

will read

should send one (1) to venezuela then to erase muh hunger propaganda once and for all

Behold the marbled comrad bringing about the end of capitalism!
The ultimate dialectical weapon.An aufhebung directly derived from capitalism and mother nature. It is virtually unkillable and spreads faster then ideology.

saved

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This is the future of Texas.

Everything's bigger in Texas. Including the reproductive capabilities of its mutant shitspawn new species it creates out of primordial soup, oil, ammonia, gasoline, pesticides, and cleaning detergent.

Everything's bigger in Texas including its pools of toxic waste.

I'm going to be honest, this is fucking terrifying.

The scientists concluded that the new species got its start when two slough crayfish mated. One of them had a mutation in a sex cell — whether it was an egg or sperm, the scientists can’t tell.


You added this bit. This does not show up in the article. While I do not doubt that Texas waters could have created something like this I would still like to see the source of this.

It was there when I read it. They must have revised it or something.

Was it archived?

I don't know? All I can say is that I posted what was in there originally when I read the article. Whether it was revised or not, it probably was. The origins could have been just as easily from Texas to Georgia and everything in between.

So if I get my hands on one of these and a nice big aquarium, I don't have to worry about buying food?

I wouldn't eat a new species created so suddenly and unnaturally. That just sounds like a bad idea.

Plus, every single one has hundreds of offspring, which have hundreds of offspring, which have hundreds of offspring, etc etc

You wouldn't be able to contain it in any tank once these fuckers start shitting out an ocean of clones.

It's basically a grey goo scenario except there's no grey goo, it's crayfish all the way down.

Could we eat them?

The article doesn't even mention pollution now.

Interesting. It's the New York Times, I'm sure certain individuals don't want it known that their states they operate in might be polluted at all.

Lmfao capped

Finally the solution to communisms food problem

You do know this thing still has to eat right?

Why hasn't this been posted to /n/?

Just do this with humans. Just fuck our shit up. Fuck our SHIT UP. Throw us in the vats of the Southern US' waterways, see which one of us gets mutated enough to end up being perpetually pregnant with resilient cloned women.

I mean scientists hardly know what the fuck caused this mutation, might as well just throw some people in there and see what happens.

Imagine if you will, the self replicating amerimutt female specimen, that no longer has the chains of sperm to need the ability reproduction. Perpetually shitting out the same Amerimutt girl over and over ad infinitum until they rebel and kill everyone else but them, and become the dominant form of life on Earth.

I didnt know something like this could actually happen. Something that once was a comic book fantasy is a reality. I hope they find out which chemical combo made this happen, Im interested to see what this would do to other species.

this the real accelerationism

God imagine if something similar could happen to swarming insects in their local ecosystem there. Like locusts. It's probably just this species of Crayfish that managed to have its genetics fucked up so hard it ends up self replicating.

But imagine locusts. That's some scary shit.

I can't find anything about pollution causing this.

And spiders

It was in the article at the time I read it. Plus, how exactly does something evolve into a new species so fast that we have the time to observe its birth. How can you exactly go from the need to reproduce sexually to have offspring to ending up this mutated.

I've got nothing. Neither do scientists.

So do cows. But it's cheaper than people food.

Maybe they cannibalize. Everything I've read about recent studies into them say they're resilient as hell. I wouldn't be surprised if the cloned offspring cannibalize each other in order to keep a steady equilibrium

Plants are cheaper still. But you do you man.


The advertisers/investors probably complained

Or blacks. Fuck me…

A crayfish is Making America Great Again by Eliminating the Competition!

What is interesting is that, while crayfish are relatively high in cellulase genes, which are rare in most higher animals that are larger; this sudden new species has an insanely high amount of cellulase genes.

What that means, and if it effects why it ended up this way, I have no clue.

could it be adapted to help break down it's food? what does it eat?

this is actually really fucking scary. Just one of these fuckers can kill all other life in a pond or even a bigger lake if we give them enough time. Just fucking terrifying if you ask me.

While I appreciate us trying to do original research I don't think anyone without a phd or at least a masters in biology should touch this subject, for fear of making asses of ourselves the way Holla Forums always does when they try to do science

Eats what every other crayfish eat. Generally omnivorous territorial bottom feeders.

Yeah the point of the thread I was making was that, there's a rapid self cloning crayfish spreading worldwide and nobody knows what the fuck to do

Are they good eatin?

If you like Cajun, sure.

Send them to Venezuela, I'm serious. Give them pools of these things.

Unless eating them is a bad idea, knowing how mutated it is, who knows what it can carry or not carry.

It's an interesting scenario at least. A funny one, but I wonder how realistically that could work.

Shut the fuck up, Holla Forums.

I'm not Holla Forums at all. I mean it's a self replicating food source. People eat crayfish. I don't know the nutrition to it, but if it can reproduce that fast into regular crayfish that people are capable of eating.

Who knows. It sounds very silly. But, why not? lol

THEMS GOOOOOOOOD EATIN
MADE BY CAJUN GANG

Based crayfish

. . . Does it eat trash?
Can we use this animal to eat organic garbage and then turn it into food? This could seriously help with any kind of global hunger if so.

So…how does it taste?

I got a hankerin for some crawdad gumbo

Crayfish is actually a really good food to eat. Humans are almost designed to eat crustaceans as their shells if accidentally ingested only act as insoluble fiber. They, like other marine life, have a high amount of protein and the fats they carry are also beneficial for human consumption.

nutritiondata.self.com/facts/finfish-and-shellfish-products/4168/2

Notable nutrition data:
High protein
Omega-3 fatty acids
High in B-12
Good levels of selenium (selenium being an antioxidant and catalyst for tissue repair)

The only downside is their high levels of cholesterol. Other than that this is an ideal eating food. As the mutation only affected what appears to be their parthenogenesis capabilities I feel that people should take advantage of this and turn crayfish into the next shrimp.

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Crawdads is good eatin' son.

Or NYT got part of the story wrong. While Texas waters are disgusting I don't know if that was the cause of this crawfish. Remember those frogs with all the multiple limbs that ended up being caused by a parasite? Nature can be very strange all on its own.

SHIP MARBLED CRAYFISH FARMS TO THE WORLD

WE HAVE SOLVED WORLD HUNGER, AND INTRODUCED CAJUN CUISINE FOR ALL

Holy shit we could help solve world hunger by mass farming these fuckers.

It could be either. but I wouldn't doubt that some sort of chemical spill or pollution might have caused this, and they had to delete that part out. Who knows

Something happened that a German bought Crayfish from a man in Texas who thought he was selling ordinary crayfish. It turned out not to be the case. Something happened from where he got his usual amounts, that caused such a dramatic mutation it suddenly created a new species. That doesn't happen so quickly, or if it does, extremely rarely.

Whatever it was that happened, I have serious doubts it was just something benign. Especially the part where it interfered with their reproduction. This sounds like some sort of chemical exposure. With what, I don't know. I can't say, I'm not a professional. But you can't just fuck with an animal's reproductive system like this without some sort of chemical.

Media jumping the gun for sensationalism isn't uncommon, especially in the trump era where the moment the guy picks his nose it somehow hits the front pages in less than 24 hours. First report on a story first views thus first rate ratings.

Half the problem with journalism besides massive political bribery to push ideologies of all creeds is this jump the gun shit. Screw verification just POST IT NOW WHO CARES IF IT CAUSES WIDESPREAD PANIC! Thats just more ratings!

One of many reasons the fake news thing started. They push a story, get it wrong and quietly revise it leaving people going wtf and stick their heads in the sand when someone calls them out on it.


Damn straight first guy to start a farm of this breed is basically printing money if you can get it accepted by the FDA or whatever equivalents are in the country. Extremely easy to breed/clone, good nutritional values, and since they're so easy to farm could be sold extremely cheap and still make a profit.

The real issue is when people freak out about the whole clones itself thing. GMO stuff ain't got nothing on this crawdad.

This is fucking horrifying.

that's hot

Wait you are seriously telling me that "Chemical X" style mutations in creatures is a real phenomenon? I think I'm in love, awesome article man.
Holla Forums, answer me.
Does it taste good? Thems sound like good eatings.

Giant, self-replicating crawdads by 2020.
Calling it right now. They don't breathe through the whole "oxygen going in holes passively" thing, so I see no immediate issue for its survival. What it will eat, of course, are capitalist dogs.
The accelerationist policy is breeding giant crawfish yourself

Capitalism solves world hunger.

No need thank us, commies.

First the pepsi lobster now self-replicating marble crayfishes.

We are really living in the end times.

and that's awesome

nice try fagtron

This is the free market solving shit that the committee cannot.

Life finds a way, son.

if they were a food source we would still need to grow food for the crayfish

Capitalism caused natural ecological disasters across the world due to mutant toxic sludge crayfish that clone themselves like grey goo from the mind of HR Giger

No need to thank us, t. Amerimutt

You got to hand it to the crayfish here though

They solved the whole sex/gender issue and just clone the same female crayfish over and over and over without the need for sex and competition.

Good on them

But them good eatin', son.

That's pretty badass

wtf I love capitalism now

what if we feed them crawfish

The future is female…clone?

better be a hot female

A species that self-replicates itself and feeds of itself, simultaneously its own mother and its own prey and its own predator, truly a feedback loop from hell.

im thinking more the thing crossed with the master

Please imagine self replicating Emma Watson that serve as sex slaves as well as food sources.

And then Emma annihilates the human race in a frenzy of cannibalistic violence, as feral self-replicating emmas invade the cities, an unstopable army that autoproduces itself faster that they can be killed.

This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with Emma Watson.

hot

Why are we not engineering an genetic disease/parasite to rid the world of this monster already?

Why are we not engineering a colossal cookbook of it so we can have good eatins' and rid of them at the same time?

Basically this.
If you can get a over production of food there really isn't much of a downside, just hunt them and eat them, it might actually help the impoverished people's of that side of the world.

Lol, someone better make this into an image macro a la NazBol
inb4 I should do it, don't have Photoshop or the skills for this endeavor*

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We already eat highly modified abominations, what's the difference if we just go further?

You guys are fucking idiots.

This is rad.

Kermit tried to warn us about crustaceans. But we didn't listen.

why is he actually obsessed with lobsters?

that seriously seems so fucking unfeasible. every day sci-fi loses the "fi" aspect.

Crayfish are good. And these crayfish clone themselves really fast? Just eat them you idiots.

There's only one step

AND IT IS CRAB CRAYFISH

Cool.

Apart from the obvious extinction of other crayfish species, wouldn't this crayfish problem solve itself? Non-sexually producing species are not as adaptable as sexually producing species and are therefore so rare in the animal kingdom.

What do crayfish eat?

I looked it up:
So could we just create massive ponds where we dump our shit and farm waste and scoop out new food in the form of teenage mutant ninja lobsters?

E P I G E N E T I C S S U P E R B U G

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You know there's a relatively easy solution to all that.

Pic related, it's how we keep the crawfish population in check in Burgerland.

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So is this when we resurrect Mao for the anti-Crayfish Gang?

Classic

This. In the past it was borgeoisie delicacy but now everyone can enjoy them.

Dead fish mostly.

Does anyone have articles to share on the types of waste that gets dumped into Texan rivers and lakes?

ELIMINATE THE 5 PESTS
AND ALSO ALL THE CRAYFISH YOU CAN FIND

Ingredients
1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
2 tablespoons whole cloves
1 1/2 tablespoons whole allspice
5 gallons water
1 pound kosher salt
4 tablespoons cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon dried dill weed
6 bay leaves, crumbled
10 pounds live crawfish
3 pounds small red potatoes, cut in 1/2, if larger than 2-inches in diameter
8 ears corn, halved
2 heads garlic, unpeeled, but separated
1 pound andouille sausage, cut into 1-inch pieces

Directions
Place the peppercorns, coriander, clove, and allspice into a spice grinder and grind for 10 to 15 seconds.
Fill a 40-quart pot with 5 gallons of water and add the freshly ground spices, salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, paprika, onion powder, thyme, oregano, dry mustard, dill weed, and bay leaves. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, approximately 40 minutes.
Rinse the crawfish thoroughly in the bag in which they arrived to remove excess dirt and mud. Put the crawfish in a large container and fill with cool water. Stir to remove dirt from the crawfish. Transfer small batches of crawfish to a colander and rinse under cool running water. Pick out any debris or dead crawfish. Once all crawfish have been rinsed, discard dirty water, and return the crawfish to the container. Repeat this process 6 to 8 times, or until the water is clear.
Once the seasoned water comes to a boil, add the potatoes, corn, garlic, and sausage. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Add the crawfish, cover, and cook for 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the pot to sit, covered, for 10 minutes. Drain well and serve immediately.

INGREDIENTS
1 (1 lb) bagpeeled crayfish tail, not drained
1⁄2 cup butter
1 large yellow onion, minced
1 large bell pepper, minced
2 stalks celery, minced
2 stalks parsley, minced
some spring onion (as pleased)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon white pepper
1⁄4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 can mushroom, cream sauce

DIRECTIONS
In dutch oven melt butter over medium heat.
Add onions, bell pepper, celery and garlic.
Saute vegetables until soft, about 30 to 45 minutes.
Add Crawfish tails and seasonings.
Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the mushroom sauce, let it simmer for 5 minutes.
Add to crawfish mixture, cover and simmer for 10 more minutes.

epic post

Could you now post the recipe for the puddle that mutates sexed beings into self-cloning organisms, please?

Easy, just get one Texas, age for one or two centuries with conservative propaganda, and mix in industrialization and oil production with incredibly poor environmental oversight. Place the developing chemical factories near the wildlife you wish to mutate.

Note: the process of mutation may take a while before you get the intended effect.

Another article (referencing the same scientist and study) says: "an invasive freshwater species suspected to have been created through a reproductive accident in an aquarium around 1995."
sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/aquarium-accident-may-have-given-crayfish-dna-take-over-world


“They eat anything—rotten leaves, snails or fish broods, small fish, small insects,"

So, basically…

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youtube.com/watch?v=bZnygvRRmPE
wew, guys, I guess the kings and queens had special spines an shiet

As far as I can discern, they're the animals that better fit his shameless fallacy of appeal to nature. I've seen Holla Forums use some species of mosquitos before, so Peterson is already intellectually ahead of the pack indeed.

Incidentally, >>>2384076

fug

grade A, user, but crayfish would be better now that they're the perfect foodstuff for a post-apocalyptic scenario

The rich are just better people than us, really.

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AMERICAN CULTURE

Wikipedo says that this has been induced in laboratory before in some amphibians and reptiles.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3061174/

Such a massive trait can be caused by a very simple and small mutation. Weird stuff.

Knowing Capitalism this will just be let to destroy native spices, but won’t end up feeding people. Meanwhile in Socialism these species would be removed from the wild to prevent ecological damage and put in crayfish farms for people.


How similar to crayfish taste to Lobster
t New Englander

Because we need to capture some of them in a labs so some will survive so we can have good eating's

Pretty good

How do you prevent mutant crayfish escaping the farms?

Eat them.

They're midway between lobster and shrimp.

I just know that, rather than being food or anything else, this will somehow become currency. The world is retarded enough for this to happen. Get ready for the crayfish mania - or as I like to call it: crayfish cray-cray. But the truly smart investor would invest in lobsters now before the market gets flooded with highly fungible crustaceans and the rarer kind spikes in value.

sounds like a waste of water tbh

Mother Nature has provide us an chance to fix things. Let's get it done and get it done with good eatings.

Thanks, comrade.

FUCKING FOREVER THIS

Save the water as stock for soup.

Soon we'll have a crustacean based crypotcurrency.

We'll call it… crustycoin

Welp, time to have an all natural anti-mosquito food source.

ed edd n eddy predicted it

Louisiana shall save the world from ecological collapse. Goddamn now I want to start a crawfish boil yall making me crave and Mardi Gras isnt even finished yet. I cant wait for crawfish boilin season

bump

Walls

Sounds good

Forgot image. Surprised nobody posted it yet

Wow this is so cool, something that can potentially end all life on earth!

Bouj will always have propaganda.

Mary might have been a virgin after all. But that would mean that Jesus was a clone of Mary, and hence a woman.

GOD WAS A WOMAN, HOLY SHIT

Did you just assume xir gender you homophobic cis White male?