Engaeus lengana
Keith A. CrandallTypes
Holotype, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart G3208 (male); allotype, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart G3209 (female); paratypes, Museum of Victoria, Melbourne J14708 (male), J14709 (female).Type Locality
Small seepage with pipe outlet at beach, near campsite/boat launch on eastern coast of Rocky Cape, in National Park.Distribution
E. lengana is one of three species of Engaeus which can be found along the west coast of Tasmania; it has been collected from Hunter Island in the north-west, from Rocky Cape along the north coast and from Birchs Inlet in the south (south of Macquarie Harbour). The disjunct distribution between the Frankland River and just north of Macquarie Harbour is probably an artefact of insufficient collections rather than a real distributional gap.Habitat
E. lengana has been found in coastal swamps or creeks in tea-tree, in the blackwood Acacia melanoxylon, swamps of northwestern Tasmania or even in swamps dominated by huon pine Lagarostrobus franklinii, at the mouth of the Gordon River, in buttongrass plains (Birchs Inlet) and by creeks either in wet sclerophyll forest (Smithton) or true rainforest (near Arthur River). At the type locality (Rocky Cape), the species is not found with any other species and can be collected from a seepage in an amphitheatre formed by the slopes of the Cape; here the waters of the seepage flow beneath the roots of stunted tea-tree and other small plants, and the burrows of E. lengana are only represented by wide, ramifying cavities between the roots and the soil and do not have conspicuous openings, nor descending tunnels. Consequently, the only method of collecting them is to lift up the surface vegetation and search the water immediately beneath. Since technically the species is occupying permanent water, it can be classed as occuring in either type 1a or 1b burrow habitat.References
Horwitz, Pierre. 1990. A Taxonomic Revision of Species in the Freshwater Crayfish Genus Engaeus Erichson (Decapoda: Parastacidae). Invertebr. Taxon., 1990, 4, 427-614.
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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Citing this page:
Crandall, Keith A. 2001. Engaeus lengana http://tolweb.org/Engaeus_lengana/7833/2001.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
. Version 01 January 2001 (under construction).