Astacus astacus   (Linnaeus, 1758)

Noble crayfish
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Astacus astacus

Classification / Names Common names | Synonyms | CoL | ITIS | WoRMS

Malacostraca | Decapoda | Astacidae

Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range Ecology

Benthic; freshwater.  Temperate

Distribution Countries | FAO areas | Ecosystems | Occurrences | Introductions

Europe inland waters: northern and eastern Europe, including portions of France eastward to countries of the Russian Commonwealth and southern Scandinavia southward. Absent from the Italian and Balkan Peninsulas. Introduced to various parts of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa.

Length at first maturity / Size / Weight / Age

Maturity: Lm ?  range ? - ? cm Max length : 25.0 cm TL male/unsexed; (Ref. 127977)

Short description Morphology

Typically brown or green on the back, underside of first pair of claws dark red or reddish brown.

Biology     Glossary (e.g. epibenthic)

First crayfish species to be described in 1758; important species in European fisheries for centuries. Occurs in a wide variety of habitats, from streams and rivers to lakes, usually in well-oxygenated waters with sufficient foliage cover. An opportunistic feeder on living and dead plant and animal matter. Mating usually in autumn, eggs are carried over winter and hatching occurs in spring and summer. Most native European populations were decimated by the crayfish plague, first detected in Italy in the 1860s. Introduced North American spinycheek crayfish, Orconectes limosus (to replace stocks of decimated population of noble crayfish in the Oder River, Germany in 1890) and other introduced crayfish species competing with and displacing native noble crayfish populations coupled with habitat destruction and pollution contributed to the decline in noble crayfish populations in Europe. Protected under the European Union Habitats Directive (Ref. 80793).

Life cycle and mating behavior Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae

Main reference References | Coordinator | Collaborators

Hildyard, A. and M. Cavendish. 2001. (Ref. 80788)

IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435: Version 2024-1)

  Not Evaluated 

CITES status (Ref. 108899)

Not Evaluated

CMS (Ref. 116361)

Not Evaluated

Threat to humans

  Harmless

Human uses

Fisheries: commercial; aquaculture: experimental
FAO - Aquaculture: production; Fisheries: landings | FishSource | Sea Around Us

Tools

E-book | Field guide

More information

Trophic Ecology
Food items
Diet
Food consumption
Ration
Predators
Ecology
Ecology
Home ranges
Population dynamics
Growth
Age/Size
Length-weight
Length-length
Length-frequencies
Mass conversion
Recruitment
Abundance
Life cycle
Reproduction
Maturity
Fecundity
Spawning
Eggs
Egg development
Larvae
Larval dynamics
Distribution
Countries
FAO areas
Ecosystems
Occurrences
Introductions
Human Related
Aquaculture profile
Stamps, Coins Misc.
Outreach
Collaborators
Taxonomy
Common names
Synonyms
Morphology
Pictures
References
References

Internet sources

BHL | BOLD Systems | CISTI | DiscoverLife | FAO(Fisheries: ; publication : search) | Fishipedia | GenBank (genome, nucleotide) | GloBI | Gomexsi | Google Books | Google Scholar | Google | PubMed | Tree of Life | Wikipedia (Go, Search) | Zoological Record

Estimates based on models

Vulnerability (Ref. 71543): Low vulnerability (15 of 100).
Price category (Ref. 80766): Unknown.

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