Classification: Nongame Fish - Crustacean
National Range: “type locality (small tributary to Horsepasture River, Jackson County, North Carolina) and tributaries of the French Broad River in Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, Madison, and Transylvania counties, North Carolina” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); endemic to North Carolina
NC Physiographic Region(s): southwestern mountains
River Basin(s): French Broad (absent from Pigeon and Nolichucky sub-basins), portions of Little Tennessee (upper Tuckasegee sub-basin), upper Savannah
Adult Habitat: “streams” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); “moderately flowing streams in headwaters” (NHP ICAS 1999); "slack or slow-moving wafers of low gradient and generally with considerable organic debris" (Cooper and Braswell 1995)
Reproductive Season: fall through mid-summer?
Species associates: C. (C.) bartonii, C. (J.) asperimanus, C. (P.) chaugaensis, C. (P.) robustus
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 a species of Special Concern
Identification references: Hobbs Jr. 1989, Hobbs 1991
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.