![\"Chagrin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SAKVCH6O4FHP7DDHTUGA2LVT4E.png\"\/)
Sean Williams’ Tri-C students looking for invertebrates on the Chagrin River in Willoughby Hills.Sean Williams<\/p>\nCLEVELAND, Ohio \u2013 On a recent September morning, Sean Williams took his Tri-C biology class to the Chagrin River to look for invertebrates, such as crayfish, flatworms and insect larvae.<\/p>\n
What they came across shocked Williams.<\/p>\n
One of his students, Maykala Hooper, spotted what she believed to be a crayfish lurking in about one foot of water.<\/p>\n
Williams went over to check it out and with the help of another student, pulled aside a rock the size of a table to expose the crustacean.<\/p>\n
But there was something peculiar about the crayfish. One half was brown and the other half orange, with a clear demarcation down the middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cOut of instinct I reached down and grabbed it,\u201d Williams said \u201c\u2026 and I was freaking out.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because Williams knew what he had \u2013 a crayfish with a bilateral color variation, a rare mutation he had read about in lobsters and had seen with his own eyes in a bird called an American redstart.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s writing up the discovery for submission to a peer-reviewed science journal.<\/p>\n
Sean Williams’ Tri-C students looking for invertebrates on the Chagrin River in Willoughby Hills.Sean Williams<\/p>\n
The class couldn\u2019t stop talking about the two-toned crayfish, which they took back to Cuyahoga Community College and placed in a tank. They named him Chris for \u201cChris the crayfish,\u201d but also because Chris was gender neutral and it wasn\u2019t known yet if he was male or female.<\/p>\n
Chris lived a couple more weeks, long enough for Zackary Graham, an assistant biology professor and crayfish expert at West Liberty University in West Virginia, to come and see the genetic oddity for himself.<\/p>\n
Williams had reached out to Graham, emailing him a photo, which he opened on a Sunday morning while getting coffee with his fianc\u00e9e.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I pretty much told her I need to go up and see this crayfish in Cleveland this week,\u201d Graham told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.<\/p>\n
Graham, who grew up in suburban Pittsburgh flipping over rocks in search of tiny creatures, said he\u2019s only aware of maybe 10 reports of this type of bi-colored crayfish in history, the first being in 1666 in Germany. All the other instances have been in the United States or Australia, where 90% of all crayfish species call home.<\/p>\n
![\"Crayfish\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ZXYKLZZBSBD37KYGYF2K4QHVII.jpeg\"\/)
A crayfish with a rare condition called bilateral color variation was found in the Chagrin River.Maykala Hooper<\/p>\n
Williams said he believes the mutation was caused by two rare occurrences, the first being a developmental anomaly where the egg cell had two nuclei instead of one. That would mean it had two sets of genes, and each was fertilized by a different sperm cell. Following that, within one of those sets of genes, a rare color mutation occurred.<\/p>\n
Graham said that\u2019s not the only possibility. But in general, what happened was \u201can error in the cell division process\u201d sometime after fertilization.<\/p>\n
Williams and Graham will explore the various possibilities in a science paper they hope to have published, with some of Williams\u2019 students listed as co-authors.<\/p>\n
By documenting the find, Williams said, science will have a \u201ca better understanding of the developmental process of animals,\u201d something that could ultimately benefit humans if such a phenomenon were ever found in people.<\/p>\n
While there are higher mutation rates in places with more pollution, Williams said there\u2019s no reason to believe anything in the environment contributed to the bizarre coloring of Chris the crayfish. He sees it as simply a matter of probability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy does any given person win the lottery?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As for his students, it brought a lot of added excitement to the principles of biology class.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been like a nonstop conversation,\u201d Hooper said.<\/p>\n
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