Astacus

Astacus is a genus of crayfish found in Europe, comprising three extant (living) species and three somewhat contested extinct species. These crayfish are found across Europe and live exclusively in freshwater, mostly inhabiting the bottom of lakes, ponds, and streams.

Astacus

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AstacidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Decapoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 21 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences101–100 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences94–93 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences93.9 Mya72.2 Mya101.2 Mya65.3 Mya

3 occurrences of Astacus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

3 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Saldeño — 34.30°S, 69.72°WDölzschen Formation — 50.50°N, 12.13°EPeruc-Koryčany — 49.11°N, 17.16°E

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The named rock units Astacus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Astacus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Astacus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

10 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Astacus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Astacus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAstacidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Fabricius 1775)