Tuckasegee Stream Crayfish

National Range: Presently known only from NC in the upper Little Tennessee River basin.

NC Physiographic Region(s): Blue Ridge Mountains

River Basin(s): Little Tennessee

Adult Habitat: Predominately, margins of relatively high gradient streams with substrates dominated by boulder and cobble, found frequently beneath boulders.  (Cooper and Schofield 2002, Simmons and Fraley 2008)

Reproductive Season: unknown; Form I males seen in October and November

Species associates: C. (C.) bartonii, C. (C.) georgiae

Conservation status: Not protected

Identification references: Cooper and Schofield 2002

Taxonomic Description:

• body shape: subcylindrical, moderately depressed dorsoventrally
• coloration: incomplete dark saddle superimposed on tan, grayish-green, or mottled background; lateral areas dark,with pale granules and streaks. Other color variations exist.
• spines: lacking; branchiostegal and cervical spines reduced to rounded tubercles if present; 5-7 tubercles or spines on the ventral surface of carpus
• rostrum: thickened margins; moderately to strongly convergent; occasionally subparallel from base to base of acumen; margins abruptly thinning, then broadly concave and more strongly converging to dorsally directed apical tubercle.
• areola: broad, densely punctuate;usually with 5-6 punctations across narrowest part
• chelae: palm very inflated; mesial margin of palm has a row of 7-9 large, semierect tubercles, subtended dorsally by a row of 2-4 smaller tubercles;fingers short, stout, and slightly gaping if at all; strong longitudinal ridges
• other characteristics: suborbitalangle obtuse to subacute with rounded or acute tubercle.
• form I male gonopod: central projection short, not tapered, curved over 90° to plane of shaft with proximally directed deep subapical notch; mesial processvery long, inflated at base, tapered and attenuate toward caudal end, tip acute.