Procambarus curdi (Reimer)

Map [dots indicate Ouachita National Forest collection sites]

Recognition Characters: Rostrum does not have lateral spines. Postorbital ridges terminating cephalically without spine. Cervical spine is absent or reduced to small tubercle. The acumen is narrow with two rows of punctations at its narrowest part. Branchiostegal spine is reduced as is the suborbital angle. The antennal scale is widest at mid-length. The chela is subcylindrical and long. The inner surface of the palm is tuberculate with the rest of the surface covered with punctations. The palm of the chela lacks a beard. The first pleopod of Form I male reaches the coxopodite of the third pereiopod and terminates in four distinct parts. Mesial process is noncorneous, subspiculiform, and extends beyond other terminal elements; cephalic process is noncorneous and small. The caudal process is truncate. The lamellated part of caudal process is corneous, flattened lateriomesially, and narrow with the distal margin rounded. The central projection is corneous, large, and subtrianular, and flattened lateromesially, slightly longer than the caudal process. The cephalic shoulder rounded. Annulus ventralis subovate.

Coloration: A medium-sized brownish to rusty-brown crayfish with a cream-colored ventrolateral area of the carapace.

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

Habitat: This crayfish inhabits lentic and sluggish lotic situations (Hobbs, 1989). Reimer (1975) collected the type material from burrows on the bank of the Navasota River in Texas. The burrows were about two feet deep with chimneys up to five inches in height. All burrows had only one opening. This describes the burrows of this species which were dug in the Tiak District in Oklahoma. Several burrows went down over three feet in clay substrates in pastures and roadside ditches.

General Range: Hobbs (1989) provided the distributional range of this crayfish species as the Navasota and trinity watersheds in Texas, and the Red River basin in southwestern Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma.

Comments: Reimer (1975) originally described Procambarus curdi from the type locality in Brazos County, Texas. This primary burrower was collected only three times from the Tiak District in Oklahoma. A total of seven specimens was taken in the study.

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