#4505 · 🦀 crabs & other crustaceans
Signal Crayfish
🇳🇱 Californische rivierkreeft ·Pacifastacus leniusculus
📍 Vasona Reservoir, Los Gatos, CA, US
📍 Brentwood Bay, BC, Canada
📍 Coos County, OR, USA
📍 Kettering, UK
📍 Owyhee County, ID, USA
📍 Renton, WA, USA
10 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
- 1. © Josh Houston · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 2. © Jakob Fahr · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 3. © AB · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 4. © Collier Sparks · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 5. Vasona Reservoir, Los Gatos, CA, US:© Parsa Fard · CC BY 4.0
- 6. Brentwood Bay, BC, Canada:© Brian Starzomski · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 7. Coos County, OR, USA:© John · CC BY-NC 4.0
- 8. Kettering, UK:© Matthew Vosper · CC BY 4.0
- 9. Owyhee County, ID, USA:© no rights reserved · CC0
- 10. Renton, WA, USA:© bartbee · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
what is it?
The signal crayfish ( Pacifastacus leniusculus ) is a North American species of crayfish. It was introduced to Europe in the 1960s to supplement the Scandinavian Astacus astacus fisheries, which were being damaged by crayfish plague, but the imports turned out to be a carrier of that disease. The signal crayfish is now considered an invasive species across Europe and Japan, ousting native species there.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 1 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 12,900 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named by James Dwight Dana in 1852 (174 years ago).
- Not originally Dutch: it was introduced to the Netherlands.
fact sheet
- English
- Signal Crayfish
- Nederlands
- Californische rivierkreeft
- scientific name
- Pacifastacus leniusculus
- class
- Malacostraca
- order
- Decapoda
- family
- Astacidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- in NL
- introduced
- sightings in NL
- 1
- sightings in Europe
- 4,652
- sightings worldwide
- 12,900
- GBIF records in NL
- 236
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1852 by James Dwight Dana
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Astacidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 53708, Wikidata Q693000, GBIF 2226990, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.