They had a pond in the campground, and as we took a walk, we saw towers on the sand! Curious, we asked the CG owners "what up?".
Turns out that the Crawdads (crayfish, crawfish) of North Texas live in the sand and build these towers. These critters are up to about 6 inches long! They live up to 3 feet down, and as they excavate their homes, they use their saliva to mix with the sand and roll it to the top. The sand is soft, but the wads the crawdads make are quite hard. If the tower gets knocked over, they just build it right back up. Don't know the purpose of the towers, but do know that if it rains they roll up a ball and glue it accross the vertical tunnel to seal out the water.
Tried to catch them using a string and a bit of ham, and I could feel them tugging but could not get them to hang on! Found a couple on the shore in the morning.
This will make a fine video topic for Science Explorers kids! Kids love critters, ya know?
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