''Engaeus sternalis'', the Warragul burrowing crayfish, is a species of

crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the infraorder Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. They breathe through feather-like gills. Some spe ...

in the family

Parastacidae 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 ta ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It is only known from locations on the Labertuche Creek and Wattle Creek (a tributary of Labertouche Creek) in west

Gippsland Gippsland () is a rural region in the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains south of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers an elongated area of east of th ...

. It is a cryptic, burrowing species with a very limited distribution, and virtually nothing is known about its ecology, population dynamics or habitat requirements.

References

Sources

*Doran, N. & Horwitz, P. 2010.
Engaeus sternalis
'. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2017. Parastacidae Freshwater crustaceans of Australia Critically endangered fauna of Australia Crustaceans described in 1936 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Crayfish-stub