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Classification: Nongame Fish - Crustacean
National Range: “southern Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois southward to Arksansas, Mississippi, and Alabama” (Hobbs Jr. 1989; F. fodiens); “Atlantic coastal plain, from Maryland to South Carolina” (Hobbs Jr. 1989; F. uhleri)
NC Physiographic Region(s): lower piedmont plateau and coastal plain
River Basin(s): all coastal plain river basins, and in the lower piedmont plateau sections of the Cape Fear, Neuse, and Tar-Pamlico (including a population on Roanoke Island, across Croatan Sound)
Adult Habitat: “lentic and lotic habitats and burrows” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); “Primary burrower along water courses and in low swampy areas. Often collected from lentic waters or sluggish streams during spring”(Bouchard 1974); “found in ditches ponds and marshes; usually constructs mud chimney above entrance to burrow…” (NHP ICAS 1999)
Juvenile Habitat: in heavy vegetation along banks or in swamps during spring; burrows?
Reproductive Season: winter?
Species associates: many
Conservation status: not protected
Identification references: Cooper 1998, 1999; Hobbs Jr. 1989; Hobbs Jr. 1991; Jezerinac et al. 1995
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.