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The Crayfish of Nebraska

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67 pool of water. A female and four mature Form I males were collected. A few juveniles were collected from this pool on 5 June 2014. A fifth site was reported to me via an email that included several photos and a short video on 8 June 2014. It was received from Jamie Kelley, the Community Education Director of the Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center near Denton, Nebraska. The Center is in the Salt Creek watershed and the site is 11 miles northwest of Princeton site. So, to date, we have two centers of distribution in Nebraska, both of which are in the southeast corner of the state. One is in Pawnee County in the South Fork Big Nemaha watershed. The other is in the northwest corner of Gage County and southwest corner of Lancaster Counties where three watersheds meet. These are Clatonia Creek (Big Blue River basin), Salt Creek (Lower Platte River basin) and North Fork Big Nemaha River (Nemaha River basin). BEHAVIOR Numerous authors have noted that crayfishes are primarily nocturnal. The Prairie crayfish was studied in eastern Oklahoma several things were learned about their nighttime behavior. 94 These include: -the greatest social activity occurs from late April through early July. -crayfish usually leave the burrow during nights when it is rainy or warm and humid. -they leave their burrows soon after sunset to roam around the area. -aggressive and sexual encounters are common at this time and result in the occupation of burrows by breeding pairs (one adult female and one Form I male). -they were most active from just before sunset to one hour after sunset. In a Wisconsin study, only one crayfish was found per burrow with one exception. Three (two males, one female) were taken from a single burrow and this was described as being very unusual. Contrasted with the comments about breeding pairs using burrows. 94 , it is clear that additional field work will be needed to find out how often this occurs. 112 There are eight types of social interaction when outside the burrow which are identified by the posture the crayfish assumes. These include: alert, approach, threat, combat, submission, avoidance, escape and courtship. Within the burrow, the defense posture is to block the tunnel with the claws. 94

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