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1 September 2008 An Annotated Checklist and Preliminary Designation of Drainage Distributions of the Crayfishes of Alabama
Guenter A. Schuster, Christopher A. Taylor, John Johansen
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Abstract

As a first step toward elucidating the current status of Alabama's crayfish fauna, museums known to have significant crayfish collections were queried for their holdings from that state. A total of 4649 records of Alabama crayfishes were obtained from seven museums. Three-hundred thirty of the records did not have suitable information for geo-referencing. The largest holdings were in the National Museum of Natural History (2544 records). Specimen identifications were verified, and all records were geo-referenced. Geographic distribution strongly favored upland drainages in the northern and central portions of the state. The Tennessee River drainage was the most collected drainage (1018 records, 23.6% of records). A total of 85 species of crayfishes are reported for the state of Alabama; only Orconectes virilis (Virile Crayfish) is deemed to be non-native. Even with the extensive collection of crayfish records in museums, there is a need for crayfish inventory work in Alabama. A total of 3107 records (76.3%) were collected prior to 1987, and 1379 (33.8%) were collected prior to 1970. In addition, there is a paucity of records from the coastal drainages of SE Alabama. There is also an under-representation of burrowing crayfishes, especially those classified as either primary or secondary burrowers. Only 212 (4.9%) of all records are of burrowing species. Lastly, a limited amount of fieldwork in Alabama has documented the presence of a species previously unreported for the state.

Guenter A. Schuster, Christopher A. Taylor, and John Johansen "An Annotated Checklist and Preliminary Designation of Drainage Distributions of the Crayfishes of Alabama," Southeastern Naturalist 7(3), 493-504, (1 September 2008). https://doi.org/10.1656/1528-7092-7.3.493
Published: 1 September 2008
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