Classification: Nongame Fish - Crustacean
National Range: “Johnston* and Sampson counties, North Carolina, south to Horry and Marion counties, South Carolina” (Hobbs Jr. 1989)
NC Physiographic Region(s): coastal plain
River Basin(s): lower Cape Fear (not Northeast Cape Fear), Lumber, Waccamaw
Adult Habitat: “lentic situations and burrows (secondary burrower)” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); "ponds, lakes (including Carolina bays), pools, swamps, roadside ditches, and borrow pits but is also found in burrows" (Cooper and Braswell 1995)
Reproductive Season: spring, others?
Species associates: P. blandingii, F. fodiens
Conservation status: placed on North Carolina Watch List (W.F. Adams and J.E. Cooper in Clamp 1999); considered by Taylor et al. (1996) to be Currently Stable throughout its range
Identification references: Cooper 1998, Hobbs Jr. 1989, Hobbs 1991
Taxonomic Description:
Crayfish Regulations (PDF)
Illustrations are reproduced with the permission of the Smithsonian Institution Press. We are grateful to them for allowing us to provide this useful information with the other materials provided herein. We also wish to recognize the tremendous contribution to crayfish biology by the author/artist, the late Horton H. Hobbs Jr.
The following illustration is reproduced from: Hobbs Jr., H. H. 1989. An illustrated checklist of the American crayfishes (Decapoda: Astacidae, Cambaridae, and Parastacidae). Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, Number 480:1-236.
Credit NCWRC for all photos.