Parastacidae

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title: "Parastacidae" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["parastacidae", "crayfish", "extant-albian-first-appearances", "taxa-named-by-thomas-henry-huxley", "decapod-families"] description: "Family of crustaceans" topic_path: "general/parastacidae" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parastacidae" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Family of crustaceans ::

| fossil_range = | image = Cherax pulcher 42998.jpg | image_caption = Cherax pulcher | parent_authority = Huxley, 1879 | display_parents = 2 | taxon = Parastacidae | authority = Huxley, 1879 | subdivision_ranks = Genera | subdivision = †Aenigmastacus*

• Astacoides
• Astacopsis
• Cherax
• Engaeus
• Engaewa
• Euastacus
• Geocharax
• Gramastacus
• †Palaeoechinastacus
• Paranephrops
• Parastacus
• Samastacus
• Tenuibranchiurus
• Virilastacus

The Parastacidae are the family of freshwater crayfish found in the Southern Hemisphere. The family is a classic Gondwana-distributed taxon, with extant members in South America, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and extinct taxa also in Antarctica.

Classification and phylogeny

Parastacidae belongs to the superfamily Parastacoidea, the monotypic taxon which contains all crayfish in the Southern Hemisphere. Parastacoidea is the sister taxon to Astacoidea, which contains all crayfish of the Northern Hemisphere. Crayfish and lobsters together comprise the infraorder Astacidea, as shown in the simplified cladogram below: |label1=Astacidea |1={{clade |label1=clawed lobsters |1={{clade |label1=Enoplometopoidea |1=Enoplometopidae |label2=Nephropoidea |2=Nephropidae }} |label2=crayfish |2={{clade |label1=Parastacoidea |1=Parastacidae |label2=Astacoidea |2={{clade |1=Cambaroididae |2={{clade |1=Astacidae |2=Cambaridae }} }} }} }} }}

Distribution

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Parastacidae_distribution.svg" caption="url-status=dead }}"] ::

Three genera are found in Chile, Virilastacus, Samastacus and Parastacus, the last of which also occurs disjunctly in southern Brazil and Uruguay.

There are no crayfish native to continental Africa, but seven species on Madagascar, all of the genus Astacoides.

Australasia is particularly rich in crayfish. The small genus Paranephrops is endemic to New Zealand. The genera Astacopsis is endemic to Tasmania, while a further two are found on either side of the Bass Strait – Geocharax and Engaeus. The greatest diversity, however, is found on the Australian mainland. Three genera are endemic and have restricted distributions (Engaewa, Gramastacus and Tenuibranchiurus), while two are more widespread and contain more than one hundred species between them: Euastacus, around the Australian coast from Melbourne to Brisbane, and Cherax across Australia and New Guinea. The Tasmanian genus Parastacoides was determined to be a synonym of Geocharax, and is no longer valid.

Fossil record

The oldest specimens from the family Parastacidae are the Albian fossils of Palaeoechinastacus from Victoria, Australia. The only northern hemisphere representative is also a fossil, Aenigmastacus crandalli from Canada.

References

References

1. T. H. Huxley. (1879). "The Crayfish: an Introduction to the Study of Zoology". C. Kegan Paul & Co..
2. (24 April 2019). "A phylogenomic framework, evolutionary timeline and genomic resources for comparative studies of decapod crustaceans". Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
3. (2017). "An updated classification of the freshwater crayfishes (Decapoda: Astacidea) of the world, with a complete species list". [[Journal of Crustacean Biology]].
4. (July 2014). "The Emergence of Lobsters: Phylogenetic Relationships, Morphological Evolution and Divergence Time Comparisons of an Ancient Group (Decapoda: Achelata, Astacidea, Glypheidea, Polychelida)". [[Systematic Biology]].
5. J. W. Fetzner Jr. (2005). "The crayfish and lobster taxonomy browser: a global taxonomic resource for freshwater crayfish and their closest relatives".
6. (2005). "''Astacoides hobbsi'', a new crayfish (Crustacea: Decapoda: Parastacidae) from Madagascar". [[Zootaxa]].
7. "World Register of Marine Species, genus ''Geocharax''".
8. (2008). "Fossil evidence in Australia for oldest known freshwater crayfish of Gondwana". [[Gondwana Research]].
9. Rodney A. Feldmann, Carrie E. Schweitzer & John Leahy. (2011). "New Eocene crayfish from the McAbee Beds in British Columbia: First record of Parastacoidea in the Northern Hemisphere". [[Journal of Crustacean Biology]].

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