Access digital copies of guides and regulations publications from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
Issue link: http://digital.outdoornebraska.gov/i/720963
32 secondary characteristics noted above will generally work. At right is the annulus ventralis of a female Devil crawfish. The upper portion of the photo is towards the crayfish's head. HABITATS The Devil crawfish is probably more common in the state than collection records indicate due to the burrowing habit of the species. Many species of crayfish will dig burrows for protection from predators and surviving periods of drought. A few, like the Devil crawfish, spend much of their life in a burrow, only occasionally venturing out into open waters. This extends to breeding and rearing their young in the burrow. The result is a relative rarity in collections. The Devil crawfish digs its burrows in firm or clayey soils which can be on the banks of the stream or some distance away. In an area along the Potomac River, burrows were scattered near the banks of the stream and the adjacent meadow and as far as 10 yards away. 227 In western Pennsylvania, they were commonly found in the bottom lands along rivers but were also found as high as 200 feet above the river. 179 They can inhabit swamps formed "by spring heads, though not in the soft mud, but along the edges of such places". 69 Burrows near a stream are shallow, not more than six inches deep, but they got progressively deeper as they got further away. Some are as deep at three feet but, however deep they were, they always went down to water. Burrows near the stream have small or no mounds but as they got further away, the mounds get larger and taller, indicating that they are deeper. Burrows vary in their construction but, as a general rule, they have a perpendicular main burrow which may have one or more oblique extra openings. The main burrow ends in a circular chamber that holds about a pint of muddy, stagnant water. Except when a female was brooding young, individual burrows never contain more than a single crayfish and adjacent burrows do not connect. 227 The Devil crawfish actually digs it's burrows by moving dirt in two ways: by pushing and by carrying. When beginning a new burrow on bare ground, the third maxillipeds, the claws (the first periopod) and the second periopods are formed into a wedge. With this wedge lowered, they simply push dirt forward like a little bulldozer. They keep doing this until they had a depression large enough for