When aquatic biologists peered under a big rock in a Tennessee creek, they got a big surprise: a new species of crayfish that is at least twice the size of its peers.
The new species, Barbicambarus simmonsi, is about 5 inches long and belongs to a class of species known for their unusual "bearded" antennae. The hair-like bristles enhance the sensory abilities of the crustacean.
The stand-out find proves that new species can be found today even in well explored areas.
"This isn't a crayfish that someone would have picked up and just said, 'Oh, it's another crayfish,' and put it back," University of Illinois aquatic biologist Chris Taylor, the curator of crustaceans at the Illinois Natural History Survey and a co-discoverer of the new species, said in a press release. "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."
Taylor, along with Kentucky University biological sciences professor Guenter Schuster found their first specimen under one of the biggest rocks in the deepest part of Shoal Creek, a stream in southern Tennessee that ultimately drains into the Tennessee River.
The new species is described in a paper in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
The pair had been tipped off by photos sent to Schuster in 2009 from a colleague who had forwarded them from a man who had seen the crayfish. The pair decided to take a field trip to the creek. For the first couple hours, they saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"We had worked so hard and long that we were ready to give up and find another site," Schuster said in the release. "And we saw this big flat boulder underneath a bridge and so we said, 'OK. Let's flip this rock, just for the heck of it; this will be our last one.' And sure enough, that's where we got the first specimen."
The big male crayfish was twice as big as any other crayfish they had seen that day. And it had the characteristic bearded setae.
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| The new species (left) is more than twice the size of a typical crayfish found in Shoal Creek. Photo credit: L. Brian Stauffer |
The researchers made several more trips to the area before they were able to collect enough specimens to confirm what they already suspected: The giant crayfish of Shoal Creek was a new species. They named it Barbicambarus simmonsi, in honor of the Tennessee Valley Authority scientist, Jeffrey Simmons, who had collected the first specimen.
It's very rare to find a completely new species that's this big and distinctive, particularly in a well-studied part of the United States that has been under pretty much constant academic investigation for the last fifty years. Cryptozoologists might want to savor this moment - this is probably the closest real scientific equivalent to finding cryptids like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster that they're ever going to get. - news.discovery.com / io9.com
NOTE: there are giant crayfish species scattered worldwide...but the discovery of this species in an area that has been known for an abundance of crayfish is remarkable. There are legends of attacks by giant crayfish in a few of the southern US states but I'm not aware of any in this specific location. If you are familiar with any tales of giant crayfish in Tennessee, please forward to me...Lon
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