Red Swamp Crayfish

• GeneralA highly damaging invader in Doñana and the Guadalquivir marshes.
• It was introduced into Spain in 1973 and 1974, first at a farm in Badajoz and then in the Guadalquivir marshes, as a commercial resource. From there it invaded practically the whole of Europe.
• It is a chronic carrier of the oomycete Aphanomyces astaci, which causes crayfish plague, almost symptomless in American species but lethal to European ones.
• That disease is the main cause of the collapse of the native white-clawed crayfish, Austropotamobius pallipes, and the pathogen is listed among the hundred worst invasive species in the world.
• A study of more than fifty diagnosed cases on the Iberian Peninsula confirmed that the pathogen was still active 45 years after the first introductions.
• In Iberian rice fields it also causes structural damage by burrowing.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - articulated calcareous exoskeleton (crustacean)

Habitat and environment

Rice fields, marshes, irrigation ditches and wetlands

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procambarus_clarkii

The pins mark the dive sites where its presence is documented.