The Dandenong Burrowing Crayfish ''(Engaeus urostrictus'') is an Australian freshwater crustacean in the Parastacidae family. As its common name suggests, the Dandenong Burrowing Crayfish is found in the

Dandenong Ranges The Dandenong Ranges (commonly just The Dandenongs) are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The ranges consist mostly of rolling hills, steeply weathere ...

east of Melbourne, Australia. ''Engaeus urostrictus'' is listed as vulnerable on the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

Habitat

The Dandenong Burrowing Crayfish occurs in riparian zones characterised by sandy soil flats adjacent to small, slow-flowing

headwater The headwaters of a river or stream is the farthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or downstream confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. It is also known as a river's source. Definition The ...

streams with high organic content. The

Crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ...

builds extensive burrow systems with many lateral branches amongst buried, rotting plants and roots of ferns, shrubs and trees. The riparian burrow systems of the species have tunnels which descend to the water table, allowing the crayfish to follow the rise and fall of the water table. The species can form chimneys of excavated soil pellets up to 13 cm high.

References

Sources

*Doran, N. & Horwitz, P. 2010.
Engaeus urostrictus
'. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2017. Parastacidae Freshwater crustaceans of Australia Vulnerable fauna of Australia Crustaceans described in 1969 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Crayfish-stub