Giant Crayfish Discovered in Tennessee
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 20th, 2011
A previously unknown species of giant crayfish has been discovered by two aquatic biologists in Tennessee. This new species is called Barbicambarus simmonis.
Photo credit: L. Brian Stauffer.
Barbicambarus simmonis is 5 inches long, which is twice the size of the average crayfish.
More than half of the 600 known species of crayfish in the world are found in North America.
The discovery of the Barbicambarus simmonis is described in a paper in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana aquatic biologist Chris Taylor and Eastern Kentucky University biological sciences professor Guenter Schuster are the co-discoverers.
The blog io9 went a bit overboard in noting it thusly:
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 mythical creatures like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster that they’re ever going to get.
Of course, there is little reality in this io9 comment. Other close “real scientific equivalents” to finding Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monsters – all a lot bigger than a crayfish – happen rather more frequently than acknowledged by the blogsphere. The new species are coming fast and furiously these days, from the six-foot-long monitor lizard discovered in 2010 to the 26-ft-wide giant mantra ray in 2008. Indeed, there are dozens of new species spotlighted every year on Cryptomundo and remarkable discoveries are savored weekly.
Yes, finding new animals in North America is a rare phenomenon, but not unknown. During the summer of 2010, for example, it was announced a new turtle was found in the USA.
The Pearl Map Turtle (Graptemys pearlensis) was a new species found in the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I saw this news yesterday, and was a bit surprised – I thought that giant crayfish were well known, since we used to catch them all the time as kids.
Growing up in a small town in North Central Texas, there was a big field across the street – it was low lying land and stayed wet most of the year. We would catch ‘crawdads’ that were easily a foot long. I remember finding a big one and putting it in my red wagon to take back home (I put water in the wagon for it).
I guess I was a cryptid finder and didn’t realize! 🙂
You don’t see these much anymore – I think the fire ants wiped them out since they are underground dwellers.