SPECIES: Euastacus maccai — Terrestrial Crayfish
CLASSIFICATION: Endangered
Meet the mountain wanderer you’ve probably never seen, the Terrestrial Crayfish. Unlike its stream-dwelling cousins, this remarkable little crustacean spends much of its life on land, emerging from cool, damp burrows in the high-altitude forests of eastern Australia. With spiny armour, vivid blue-green hues and surprisingly powerful claws for its size, this crayfish is a specialist of misty gullies and rainforest floors, surviving where moisture clings to every surface. It’s a species so secretive that even seasoned field biologists can go years without glimpsing one.
The Terrestrial Crayfish depends on consistently cool, wet conditions – exactly the kind threatened by climate change, increasingly severe droughts and the loss of intact forest cover. Even small disturbances can dry out its burrows or fragment its already tiny range.
Photo: RB McCormack