Species: Orconectes virilis
Virile Crayfish
Species
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Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
50% of total length of pleopod, central projection longer and with distal third smoothly curved so that apex directed caudally, lacking shoulder on cephalic margin of pleopod (Hobbs, 1976). [LENGTH: to 70 TCL; to 150 TL] [WIDTH: to 30]
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Crustacea
Class
Malacostraca
Order
Decapoda
Family
Cambaridae
Genus
Orconectes
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
Northern Crayfish - écrevisse à pinces bleues
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Invertebrates - Crustaceans - Crayfishes
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Crustacea - Malacostraca - Decapoda - Cambaridae - Orconectes - (Matthews et al., 2008; Matthews and Warren, 2008), and they may be synonymous.
Ecology and Life History
50% of total length of pleopod, central projection longer and with distal third smoothly curved so that apex directed caudally, lacking shoulder on cephalic margin of pleopod (Hobbs, 1976). [LENGTH: to 70 TCL; to 150 TL] [WIDTH: to 30]
Habitat Type Description
Freshwater
Migration
false - false - false
Non-migrant
false
Locally Migrant
false
Food Comments
Opportunistic.
Reproduction Comments
Amplexus in fall; brooding mid-Mar - Jul; females do not breed until 2nd yr, amles perhaps late in 1st yr. In North Carolina, a Form I male and a female were collected in copulation in late March in the Linville River and an ovigerous female was also collected (Simmons and Fraley, 2010).
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
2009-07-01
Global Status Last Changed
1996-02-19
Other Status
Currently Stable - 1996-01-01
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
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Global Range
H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - This species ranges very widely, occurring farther north in Canada than any other crayfish species. Its native range extends as far north as the southern tip of Hudson Bay; southward it occurs from New England to western Montana and through the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio River basins to Oklahoma and northern Arkansas; and it has also been widely introduced outside its native range (Pflieger, 1996). Recently it was discovered in the United Kingdom for the first time in the River Lee system of North London (Ahern et al., 2008).
Global Range Code
H
Global Range Description
>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)