The coldwater crayfish is a medium-small, stout crayfish with a blue-green head and pincers and a dark rust-brown carapace. The abdomen has a pair of conspicuous white lateral spots on the first segment, and a tapering V-shaped dark central stripe. This crayfish is distinguished from other crayfish within its range by the distinctive red and green color and V-shaped central stripe on the abdomen. Similar species: In 2018, researchers showed that the coldwater crayfish, as originally understood, actually comprised three species: the coldwater crayfish, which now is understood to occur only in the Eleven Point River system (formerly, it was understood to be in the Spring River system as well), the Eleven Point River crayfish (Faxonius wagneri), a newly described species, which occurs in a 54-mile stretch of the Eleven Point River mainstem (ranging from just southeast of Greer, in Oregon County, Missouri, to just north of Birdell, in Randolph County, Arkansas); and the Spring River crayfish (Faxonius roberti), a newly described species, which occurs in the mainstem of the Spring and Strawberry river systems in northern Arkansas (and, apparently historically, from Missouri's portion of the Spring River as well). Except for the different streams and ranges, genetic differences, and minute details of the reproductive appendages, these all would appear to most people to be coldwater crayfish. The crayfishes, however, apparently do not interbreed.
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Orconectes neglectus neglectus. Photograph by Chris Lukhaup.
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Coldwater Crayfish Missouri Department of Conservation
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