Classification: Nongame Fish - Crustacean
National Range: “mountains of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, in the headwaters of the French Broad, Little Tennessee, Catawba, Broad, Saluda, and Savannah rivers and in the Watauga Basin in Tennessee” (Hobbs Jr. 1989)
NC Physiographic Region(s): mountains and western piedmont (foothills); higher elevations
River Basin(s): Broad, upper Catawba, French Broad, Little Tennessee, New, Savannah, Watauga, upper Yadkin-Pee Dee
Adult Habitat: “seepage areas in mountain streams” (Hobbs Jr. 1989); “mountain seeps and headwaters of small mountain streams; tertiary burrower” (Williams and Bivens 1996); “frequently in burrows and tunnels in rock debris of cascading areas of streams” (NHP ICAS 1999); fast-flowing, clear water; under rocks in riffles; in simple shallow burrows along banks
Reproductive Season: may have extended breeding season (Cooper and Braswell 1995)
Species associates: C. (C.) bartonii, C. (P.) chaugaensis, C. (P.) reburrus, C.(C.) sp. A.
Conservation status: not protected
Identification references: Hobbs Jr. 1989, Hobbs Jr. 1991
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.