Legal Crayfish?

[Kevin_D]

Ive read in a few places online that keeping all Crayfish apart from C. quadricarinatus is illegal, I guess because of the risk of them being released and further damaging the UK native species, but does anyone know if there are any other exceptions that can be kept? is there a list covering all the outlawed species? I could potentially get lots of very colourful and unusual species, but wouldnt want to if every species apart from quadricarinatus is illegal.

 

[The-Wolf]

there are no exceptions, period.
however you may wish to keep any of the long armed species of shrimp.
http/www.shrimpcrabsandcrayfish.co.uk

 

[Kevin_D]

Do you know if Cambarellus would be classed as crayfish, or long armed shrimp?

 

[The-Wolf]

Cambarellus are an American crayfish
http/www.shrimpcrabsandcrayfish.co.uk/Sh....html~mainFrame

what part of that site confused you as to what is and is not a crayfish?

 

[Kevin_D]

what part of that site confused you as to what is and is not a crayfish?

The site didnt confuse me, It got me wondering though, it has Aegla sp listed as a Crayfish, from my understanding Aegla arent a Crayfish? and arent illegal either, as they are more related to Hermit Crabs, unless im mistaken and there are two species or families of Crustacean with that name?

 

[The-Wolf]

there can not be two different things with the same genus.
the genus is specific to each animal/plant.

you are correct in that Aegla are more closely related to crabs than they are crayfish
but they are by definition a crayfish and are therfore illegal in the UK.

incidentally anything that is down as xxxx Sp. is not yet confirmed and should not be considered
positively in that genus until proven/disproven.

HTH

 

[Kevin_D]

edit. please delete

 

[fatboy]

there can not be two different things with the same genus.
the genus is specific to each animal/plant.

you are correct in that Aegla are more closely related to crabs than they are crayfish
but they are by definition a crayfish and are therfore illegal in the UK.

Aegla are NOT crayfish. Same suborder (Pleocyemata), different infraorder (crays are Astacidea, Aegla are Anomura). True crabs are Brachyura and so Aegla aren't actually more closely related to them than to crays, or shrimp for that matter.

It's confusing since we use the term 'crab' for so things that have the flattened carapace & legs of true crabs. Aeglids are certainly crabs but they're not True Crabs (brachyura).

Aegla are legal in the UK and I've confirmed this with DEFRA when I was asking about a keeper licence for the small south American crays. They didn't seem to know what Aegla were, just that they weren't banned. They were quite clear about the procambus, parastasis, cherax etc. All banned apart from c. quadsomethingorother.

 

[Kevin_D]

Thanks for clearing that up, I thought they wouldnt of been illegal.