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65 curves down between the eyes. It is dished and there are no side spines. Most Prairie crayfish that I have seen have the rostrum outlined in a lighter shade of color. The chela or claw of the Prairie crayfish is a relatively short and wide. The moveable finger is about half the length of the chela and the palm is large. There are no setae between the fingers. As there are no keys for female crayfish, they are identified by their association with, and similarity to, male crayfish collected from the same area. But, since we have only six species in Nebraska, the secondary characteristics noted above may generally work. Here is the annulus ventralis of a female Prairie crayfish. The upper portion of the photo is towards the crayfish's head. HABITATS This is a primary burrowing crayfish which means that they spend the majority of their lives in a burrow. These are dug down to ground water which might be 2 meters down. At the bottom of the burrow it constructs a large pocket where it lives, only coming out at night to feed, mate and maintain its burrow. As its name suggests, the Prairie crayfish was assumed to be restricted to grasslands or prairies where burrows might be a long distance from surface water. 17, 31, 32, 180, 188, 221 However, others have found them in many other locations including ponds, vernal pools, roadside ditches, wet meadows, small creeks, marshes, and the banks of creeks and ponds. 110, 189, 199, 247 Collections in southeast Wisconsin and Illinois expand the suitable habitat to include oak savanna and sedge meadows. 112 In Iowa, of three excavated burrows, the deepest was 1.2 m. The tunnels were vertical, 2 to 3 cm in diameter and ended in a flask-shaped cavity some 10 cm across. 189 In Wisconsin, while they were collected from a creek, "ditches, temporary pools and ponds, wet meadows, and a mowed hayfield", the majority of specimens were collected by excavating burrows. These burrows typically had a vertical shaft going down some 1.5 to 2 meters. Most of these burrows had a single opening though a few had two and, often, one (or both) openings were