Field Guide

Adult red swamp crawfish are dark red (nearly black on the carapace) and have a wedge-shaped black stripe on the abdomen. Juveniles are a uniform gray, sometimes overlain by dark wavy lines. In Missouri it lives in the Bootheel.

The shrimp crayfish is medium-small, light reddish brown to gray, and thickly dusted with darker specks. Its noselike rostrum is unusually long, with the tip longer than the base, and the pincers are narrow and weak. It is found in the Bootheel.

Round pigtoes are more rounded than Wabash pigtoes. Usually, the nacre (the shell lining) is white, but in rare individuals it is bright pink.

This endangered native mussel lives in flowing waters of large streams among gravel and cobble.

Ramshorn snails are easy to identify at a glance, because the shell is a flat, disklike coil. Like other pulmonate aquatic snails, they lack the hard horny “trapdoor” possessed by other types of aquatic snails.

Most people are repulsed by leeches. But once you get past the fact that many species are parasitic bloodsuckers, you will discover that they are fascinating creatures with an important role in nature.

Sometimes called “water bees” or “water wasps,” backswimmers are predaceous and can deliver a painful bite if mishandled. True to their name, they swim belly-up, and their backs are keeled like a boat, which makes back-swimming easier.

Crayfish are freshwater aquatic invertebrates that look a lot like small lobsters, to which they are related. There are about 38 species of crayfish in Missouri.