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Scientific Name : Procambarus Curdi

Common Name/s : English – Red River Burrowing Crayfish

Native : United States (Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas)

Size: Adults are about 3 to 5 inches (76-127 mm) in total length.

Recognition Characters: Rostrum does not have lateral spines. Postorbital ridges terminating cephalically without spine. Cervical spine is absent or reduced to small tubercle. The acumen is narrow with two rows of punctations at its narrowest part. Branchiostegal spine is reduced as is the suborbital angle. The antennal scale is widest at mid-length. The chela is subcylindrical and long. The inner surface of the palm is tuberculate with the rest of the surface covered with punctations. The palm of the chela lacks a beard. The first pleopod of Form I male reaches the coxopodite of the third pereiopod and terminates in four distinct parts. Mesial process is noncorneous, subspiculiform, and extends beyond other terminal elements; cephalic process is noncorneous and small. The caudal process is truncate. The lamellated part of caudal process is corneous, flattened lateriomesially, and narrow with the distal margin rounded. The central projection is corneous, large, and subtrianular, and flattened lateromesially, slightly longer than the caudal process. The cephalic shoulder rounded. Annulus ventralis subovate.

Coloration Procambarus Curdi : A medium-sized brownish to rusty-brown crayfish with a cream-colored ventrolateral area of the carapace.

Habitat Procambarus Curdi : This crayfish inhabits lentic and sluggish lotic situations (Hobbs, 1989). Reimer (1975) collected the type material from burrows on the bank of the Navasota River in Texas. The burrows were about two feet deep with chimneys up to five inches in height. All burrows had only one opening. This describes the burrows of this species which were dug in the Tiak District in Oklahoma. Several burrows went down over three feet in clay substrates in pastures and roadside ditches.

General Range Procambarus Curdi : Hobbs (1989) provided the distributional range of this crayfish species as the Navasota and trinity watersheds in Texas, and the Red River basin in southwestern Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma.

Procambarus curdi has been assessed as Least Concern. This species has a wide distribution, with an extent of occurrence of 86,000 km2, and has no known major threat processes impacting the population.

This species is known from the Navasota and Trinity river watersheds in Texas, and the Red River basin in southwestern Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma (Reimer 1975). Procambarus Curdi has a distribution of approximately 86,000 km2.

Procambarus Curdi is a primary burrower which inhabits permanent rivers, temporary and permanent pools, and ditches (Reimer 1975, Hobbs 1990). It burrows in sandy soil but can inhabit much harsher environments (Hobbs 1990).