Engaeus disjuncticus
Keith A. CrandallTypes
Holotype, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart G3199 (male); allotype, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart 3200 (female); paratypes, Museum of Victoria, Melbourne J14699 (female), Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart G3201 (male), G3202 (female).Type Locality
small tributary of Rubicon River, due east of Elizabeth Town on Weetah Road, North Tasmania.Distribution
This species has a curious disjunct distribution from which it derives its specific epithet, being found in the Granville Harbour-Rosebery district in western Tasmania and the region of the Dazzler Range and north of Deloraine in northern Tasmania and the region of the Dazzler Range and north of Deloraine in northern Tasmania. Further distributional points may be gained from the region joining the two districts, if both groups of populations indeed represent the same species, and if there is not, in fact, a natural disjunct distribution.Habitat
At all known sites for this species the vegetation was mixed forest; in fact at Renison Bell, Nothofagus cunninghamii occured with other rainforest species and at Holwell Gorge, while the vegetation was conspicuously more open than that at Renison Bell, Nothofagus cunninghamii also occurred. At the type locality, burrows were found in and adjacent to a flood plain (which was 1-3 m wide with an inclination of approximately 5 degrees). A small shallow creek meandered through this flood plain, often cutting a channel of up to 0.5 deep, while in other places it remained at the same level as the flood plain where the most conspicuous banks were those of the hill-slope. The creek did not flow all year round. The vegetation was disturbed; formerly it consisted of dense stands of Acacia dealbata with Dicksonia antarctica, some other fern species and cutting grass (Gahnia sp.) being found close to the creek. The burrows were in soils of sandy, silty clays, grey in color and with small granite chips. The structure of the burrows was very similar to those described for E. leptorhynchus (Horwitz et al. 1985). Burrows could be found in the flood plain, at the junction of the hill-slope and the flood plain (type 2 burrow habitat) or on the hill-slope itself in soils with a heavier component of white clay (type 3).References
Baillie, Jonathan, and Brian Groombridge. 1996. IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals.
Horwitz, Pierre. 1990. A Taxonomic Revision of Species in the Freshwater Crayfish Genus Engaeus Erichson (Decapoda: Parastacidae). Invertebr. Taxon., 1990, 4, 427-614.
Horwitz, P. H. J., A. M. M. Richardson, and P. Cramp. 1985. Aspects of the life history of the burrowing freshwater crayfish Engaeus leptorhynchus, at Rattrays Marsh, North East Tasmania. Tasmanian Naturalist 82, 1-5.
About This Page
Page constructed by Emily Browne.
Keith A. Crandall
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA
Page copyright © 2001 Keith A. Crandall
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Engaeus disjuncticus .
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Crandall, Keith A. 2001. Engaeus disjuncticus . Version 01 January 2001 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Engaeus_disjuncticus/7826/2001.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
