No Lost Fingers!

The proper Handing of livestock is vital. Today showed the respect that our students are developing for our animals and the recognition of animal welfare and care.
Most of the class were confident and held the Yabbie while examining the 'walking legs', sex appendices, exoskeleton while dodging those fierce nippers.
The Yabiies showed the 'flee' reflex by rapidly constricting their tail to 'jet' water and retreat. Although Yabbies do attack, injure and kill other Yabbies they MOSTLY attempt to flee, in order to survive!
Yabbies, unlike fish can survive and 'breathe' out of water for an extended period of time! The secret to this is that Yabbie gills are located behind their exoskeleton and retail water in this cavity. Their gills are also constructed differently so that they DO NOT collapse (like fish). So Yabbies can continue to extract air/oxygen from their gills- even out of water. The Yabbie was returned to Tank 5 to contribute to building the bacteria colony in the biofilter/recirculation system.

* photos on the way