Crawfish Chimney

"What is that?!" I asked myself, when I came across this little structure out in the woods, a couple hundred yards from a marshy pond.  It stood about 3-4 inches high, and was made up of little chunks of mud piled up on top of each, forming a chimney.  I had never seen anything like it before.

Hyperion knew, of course.  He always does.  When I showed him my photos, he said, "That's a crawfish chimney."  And so it is.

Crawfish carry each individual wad of mud up to the top of their burrow, one by one, as they excavate - thus creating the chimney, and their home, sweet home.

Crawfish are also known as crayfish, crawdads, and colloquially - mud bugs.  Crayfish comes from an old French word - "escrevisse".  The "visse" part sounded similar to fish, and so the word morphed into crayfish.  The "craw" part was a further mutation of the word.  Escrevisse came from an old Frankish word (who knew?!) - "krebitja", meaning crab.  I just love following these sorts of word trails!