[icasey]

I see that there is plenty of fish ID resources here, and i realize this is a fish website, but i was wondering if there could be a subforum to help ID crayfish? I catch different ones every place i go, and have seen at least 30 different species in illinois alone. I think this warrants some sort of recognition, no? On top of that, many are associated with different regions or habitats, and have vastly different behavior and tendencies. I have had very aggressive ones, passive ones, ones that eat all my plants, ones that dont touch plants, some hide all day, and other crawl around always and are very active. They are hard to ID, also, so perhaps there is an expert here? Just a thought

[Burbot]

http://forum.nanfa.o...-invertebrates/

You can post it in the ID section, or in the Invert section (see link). There are quite a few experts on crayfish around here from what I have gathered.

[schambers]

There was a thread somewhere about what pictures are needed to get a good crayfish ID. I looked, but I couldn't find it. I thought it was pinned . . .

[Newt]

The major ID characteristics for crays are: the reproductive structures, located on the animal's underside near the junction of cephalothorax and abdomen, just behind the last pair of walking legs; bases of the walking legs; the claws (chelae); and structure of the carapace, especially rostrum (point between eyes) and cervical grooves/areola (incurving lines on back and space between them). So, a good photo each from the top and from the bottom, plus a close-up of the reproductive structures (from the side for males) should do.

[blakemarkwell]

Nathan summed up what is needed as far as anatomical traits go and this reminds me that I need to start taking photos of the crayfish species in Illinois. The few times I have placed the decapods in a photo tank they have behaved surprisingly well. The trick is to get representative species that are not missing chelae, etc and are adults.

As far as Illinois goes, we have roughly 15 native species that are found with any regularity, 1 introduced, 4 endangered and 1 extirpated.

Blake

This post has been edited by blakemarkwell: 10 February 2010 - 09:48 PM

[Newt]

I need to do the same for some of my local mudbugs. I have no good crayfish pics at all!