A new species of crayfish has been discovered in Tennessee and Alabama at least twice the size of any species previously found in the region, researchers say.
Scientists from the University of Illinois say the new crayfish belongs to the genus Barbicambarus, which is both big and visually distinctive. Most notably, Barbicambarus have unusual "bearded" antennae, covered with a luxurious fringe of tiny, hair-like bristles called setae that enhance their sensory function, a university release reported Wednesday.
"This isn't a crayfish that someone would have picked up and just said, 'Oh, it's another crayfish,' and put it back," said University of Illinois aquatic biologist Chris Taylor, co-discoverer of the new species with Eastern Kentucky University biological sciences Professor Guenter Schuster.
"If you were an aquatic biologist and you had seen this thing, because of the size and the setae on the antennae, you would have recognized it as something really, really different and you would have saved it."
The crayfish, which can grow almost as large as a lobster, was first discovered in Shoal Creek, a stream in southern Tennessee that ultimately drains into the Tennessee River.
There are about 600 species of crayfish in the world, and Alabama and Tennessee are hotspots of crayfish diversity, Taylor said.
The fact that a new species was overlooked for so long indicates studies of species diversity in the United States are not getting adequate resources, Schuster said.
"We spend millions of dollars every year on federal grants to send biologists to the Amazon, to Southeast Asia — all over the world — looking for and studying the biodiversity of those regions," Schuster said.
"But the irony is that there's very little money that is actually spent in our own country to do the same thing. And there are still lots of areas right here in the United States that need to be explored."
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