Edisto Crayfish

National Range: “the coastal plain from the Cape Fear River basin in North Carolina southward to the Edisto and Ashepoo basins in Colleton County, South Carolina” (Hobbs Jr. 1989)

NC Physiographic Region(s): southern coastal plain

River Basin(s): lower Cape Fear (absent from Northeast Cape Fear), Lumber, Waccamaw

Adult Habitat: “lentic and lotic situations and burrows” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); slow, slack, or stagnant areas (like pools) in piedmont streams; associated with vegetation or woody debris in swamps; ditches or lakes

Reproductive Season: n/a

Species associates: P. acutus, P. blandingii, P. braswelli, possibly C. latimanus

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:

• body shape: cylindrical, adult size is fairly small
• coloration: reddish-brown or chocolate with narrow red-orange striped down dorsal cephalic carapace; may be mottling on carapace
• spines: strong cervical, cephalic, branchiostegal, and with or without marginal spines
• rostrum: fairly short with short acumen; with or without marginal spines
• areola: narrow
• chelae: not robust
• other characteristics: telson usually with 3 or more spines on each side; interrupted cervical groove
• form I male gonopod: gonopods very assymetrical; cephalic and mesial processes sub-spiculiform; mesial process long and curved laterally around caudal side of appendage (mesially), perpendicular to main shaft

Notes:  apparently two forms exist: (1) adults living in burrows or transient lentic habitats, having a blunt or rounded rostrum and lacking marginal, cephalic, and cervical spines, and (2) adults living in loticor permanent lentic habitats, having a spiniform acumen, and marginal, cephalic, and cervical spines; juveniles apparently are all spiniform; the aspinose form has apparently never been collected in North Carolina (W.F. Adams and J.E. Cooper in Clamp 1999)