5 Things You Didn’t Know About Mudbugs

In all, there are 500 species of crawfish and North America is home to 300 of those species.  However, Louisiana and Kentucky, specifically, are home to most of those North American crawfish but it's Australia that can lay claim to the King Kong Crawdad.  Over 31 inches long, it's the largest freshwater invertebrate in the world and lives up to 40 years.

Though Mudbugs do come in various blues, whites, greens and yellow, the most common color for Mudbugs is red.  In fact, when cooked, all mudbugs turn that delicious rosy red!

Mudbugs don't even hit maturity until they're 4 years old, but if they keep themselves hidden and stay out of traps, they can actually live up to 30 years which is twice as long as some dogs.

Not only is the mudbug the Official Crustacean of the State of Louisiana, Louisiana is the first state to actually have an Official Crustacean

If you don't believe how many mudbugs are actually produced here in Louisiana, just spend a couple days at this weekend's Mudbug Madness.  With most of the 100 million pounds of mudbugs produced in Louisiana coming through aquaculture, we are responsible for 90% of the crawfish in the U.S. with 1,600 farmers utilizing 110,000 ponds and is a $120,000,000 annual industry.