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Prairie crayfish, Procambarus gracilis
This map shows that the Prairie crayfish,
Procambarus gracilis, has a small range in
the central and eastern U.S. As with the
Devil crayfish, only the northern portion of
its range would have been affected by the
ice during the Pleistocene. It also shows
that the glacial refugia for this species was
south of the ice. In its migration north and
east, it seems to be favoring the glaciated
areas since it has not moved into the non-
glaciated area in southwest Wisconsin.
If a burrowing species like the Devil
crayfish is hard to sample, the Prairie
crayfish is doubly so. To date, I have only
five records for the species in Nebraska. All
of these are in a small area in the glaciated
area of southeast Nebraska. At this time, my
best estimate is that this species will only be
found in the southeastern corner of the state,
east of the Big Blue River and south of the
Platte. This species prefers undisturbed
grassland with moist soils. Much of the
grassland in southeast Nebraska has been
drained and converted to row crops which
has probably affected their presence in the
state.
Discussion
This has been an interesting exercise but don't know if it proved anything. Perhaps someone
reading this can address some of these questions in the future.
