Cambarus acuminatus
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| Cambarus acuminatus | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Malacostraca |
| Order: | Decapoda |
| Suborder: | Pleocyemata |
| Family: | Cambaridae |
| Genus: | Cambarus |
| Species: | C. acuminatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Cambarus acuminatus Faxon, 1884 | |
Cambarus acuminatus, the acuminate crayfish, is a species of crayfish in the family Cambaridae. It is found in eastern North America.
Cambarus acuminatus was first described in 1884 by Walter Faxon, then a curator of the Invertebrate Department of the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard University, using specimens collected in 1877 from the Saluda River near Greenville, South Carolina by ichthyologist David Starr Jordan and a student named Alembert Brayton. As was common at the time, Faxon's description was brief, focusing on a few diagnostic characters, and lacked illustrations. Two type specimens were deposited with Butler University, but have since been lost. A syntype, which has disintegrated over time, is held by the MCZ[2]
Notable morphological variation between populations of this species have led taxonomists to suggest that crayfish assigned to C. acuminatus actually form a species complex, Cambarus sp. C. The lack of detail in Faxon's original description combined with the loss of the original type material has created an impediment to separation of species within the complex, leading to the description of C. acuminatus sensu stricto from new specimens. These specimens were taken from a location in the Saluda River near where the original type specimens were likely collected.[2]
Description
This species is red-brown to orange-brown. Its size ranges from 13.3 to 21.0 mm.[2]