genghisprawn is a student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology and the 2008-2009 Student Member of the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council.
He is currently conducting research on patterns of genetic and morphological diversity within Macrobrachium carcinus, the bigclaw river prawn.
Hi genghisprawn,
Nice site you’ve got going here, which I found through Nature Blog Network. I’ve added you to my “Insects & Invertebrates” blogroll, and I hope you’ll consider linking to my blog, Beetles In The Bush.
regards–ted
By: Ted C. MacRae on January 19, 2009
at 11:48 pm
I wonder if you can help me identify a crab. Today I was walking along a freshwater river and came across the remains of a crab. The only thing left were the claws, both the same size.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iminstant/3582496398/
The river is fressh water, and is a good 10-15 miles away from the ocean, here is the location I found it on a map.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.247547,-71.006269&spn=0.002802,0.004828&t=h&z=18
Many thanks for any light you can shine.
Carl
By: Carl Tyler on May 31, 2009
at 1:12 pm
Hello, Carl.
Given the shape of these claws (with the dactylus or movable “finger” above the immobile part — diagram here), it’s safe to say that they actually belonged to a Cambarid crayfish. You can find a list of the species native to New Hampshire here (which would indicate that the remains were of a species of Orconectes). Since the claws look too intact to be from an exuvium (an shed exoskeleton), I would guess them to be leftovers from a raccoon’s meal.
Hope this helps!
By: genghisprawn on May 31, 2009
at 1:45 pm