Field Guide

The woodland crayfish is stout, reddish tan to dark brown, with numerous blackish specks and blotches on the pincers, carapace, and abdomen. It occurs only in Missouri, especially in the Black River and its tributaries.

The Ozark crayfish is light brown to reddish brown with numerous black specks on the pincers and often on the abdomen as well. The pincers are broad and powerful. It lives in the White and Black stream systems.

The saddleback crayfish has a bold blackish band across the hind margin of the carapace and lacks dark blotches or specks. The pincers are broad and powerful. It occurs in the Big and Meramec river drainages.

These small mussels use darters, a type of fish, as hosts for their young.

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.

Williams' crayfish is small and rather plain, without bright colors or bold markings. It has a pale, vase-shaped zone along the middle of the dark olive-tan carapace. It is found only in the upper White River drainage of Missouri and Arkansas.

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.

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.