Astacus
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For a Greek place of this name, see Astakos
| Astacus | ||||||||||||||||
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 Astacus astacus | ||||||||||||||||
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Astacus is a genus of crayfish found in Europe and western Asia, comprising three species:
- Astacus astacus (Linnaeus, 1758), the noble crayfish, European crayfish, or broad-fingered crayfish
- Astacus leptodactylus (Eschscholtz, 1823), the Danube crayfish or Galician crayfish
- Astacus pachypus (Rathke, 1837)
Due to the American crayfish plague, crayfish of this genus have been almost wiped out in Europe and have in many European countries been replaced by the North American signal crayfish, which is resistant to the plague. This, often illegal, implantation of signal crayfish has made it very difficult to reintroduce Astacus in the wild since the signal crayfish, although resistant, does carry the plague and infects lakes and rivers it inhabits.
Astacus has been added to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Europe, and in particular in Scandinavia, Astacus is often considered to be the original and finer, thus more expensive, crayfish.
External links
- Crayfish Taxon Browser (http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/NewAstacidea/infraorder.asp?io=Astacidea)
- http://www.american.edu/TED/crayfish.htm
- http://www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=2191
- Crayfish News (http://somethin-tropical.epaulv.com)
- Crayfish Pictures (http://crayfish.epaulv.com)