Procambarus acutus (Girard)

AR Map [dots indicate Arkansas Ouachita National Forest collection sites]

OK Map [dots indicate Oklahoma Ouachita National Forest collection sites]

Recognition Characters: A large dark red or brown crayfish with a blackish, wedge-shaped pattern on the abdomen and long, slender pincers. Carapace laterally compressed, its sides with a granular texture resulting from many small bunps or tubercles. Areola present, grooves separated at midpoint by a narrow space. Rostrum with a trough-like central depression, its margins strongly converging anteriorly. Acumen short, the spines or tubercles separating it from remainder of rostrum small or absent.

Male gonopod with four short processes, three of which are strongly curved laterally from midline. Processes partly obscured by hairlike structures. Gonopod tips without a prominent shoulder. Hooks present on bases of second and third pairs of walking legs. Female sperm receptacle with fossa located to right of midline and overhung by the largest of three tubercles present on surface of receptacle (Pflieger, 1996).

Coloration: Adults typically are burgundy red with a black wedge-shaped pattern on the abdomen. Tubercles on sides of the body and pincers are cream-colored. Occasionally adults are brownish rather than red. Specimens taken from turbid water are often pale colored, almost tan in coloration. Juveniles are pale gray with blackish spots laterally on the carapace and do not have a blackish wedge on the abdomen.

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

Habitat: Reimer (1963) reported that this crayfish had the greatest diversity of habitat of any Arkansas crayfish. On the ONF in both Arkansas and Oklahoma, this species preferred lentic backwater habitats, but occasionally could be found in burrows at the margins of pools.

General Range: The general range of the nominate form, Procambarus acutus acutus, is from the Coastal Plain and piedmont from Maine to Georgia, from the Florida panhandle to Texas, and from Minnesota to Ohio. This form intergrades with P. a. cuevachicae in southwestern Texas and northern Mexico.

Comments: This crayfish is one of Arkansas' most common statewide inhabitants. Hobbs (1989) remarked that, with little doubt, the populations currently assigned to this subspecies constitute a species complex.

Because of its propensity for lentic backwater habitats which are few in the swift Ouachita Mountain streams, Procambarus acutus is a rather uncommon inhabitant of the mountainous portions of the ONF in Arkansas and Oklahoma. However, this species was relatively common in the Tiak District of Oklahoma which is located in the Coastal Plain physiographic province of Oklahoma where substrates are soft and less rocky. During the Arkansas study only 15 individuals of this species were taken from eight localities while 58 specimens were collected in Oklahoma from 20 collections. Interestingly, in Arkansas just outside the ONF boundaries in Lake Greeson (Little Missouri drainage) Procambarus acutus is quite abundant as samples seined from a small farm pond owned by Mr. and Mrs. Clay Crump attested. Procambarus acutus were collected by Mrs. Betty Crump and kept for later inspection by the Principal Investigator.

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