19 September 2018

The Maltese crayfish: A dozen invaded European countries


It was Germany, then Italy, then the Netherlands, then Hungary, then Croatia, then Slovakia, then Romania, then Sweden, then the Ukraine, then the Czech Republic, then Estonia, and now Malta.

Malta makes it an even dozen European countries where Marmorkrebs have been found in outdoors, according to a paper in press from Deidun and colleagues. This is not a few stray individuals, either. Some sites (visited in 2016 and 2017) had hundreds of individuals. I will add the paper to the collection of abstract on the blog once the final paginated version is published.

I have updated the map of Marmorkrebs introductions accordingly.

My only consolation is that at some point, I’m going to run out of European countries to add to the list. Marmorkrebs will be in all of them.



Reference

Deidun A, Sciberras A, Formosa J, Zava B, Insacco G, Corsini-Foka M, Crandall KA. Invasion by non-indigenous freshwater decapods of Malta and Sicily, central Mediterranean Sea. Journal of Crustacean Biology: in press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jcbiol/ruy076

External links

Alien crayfish invade Malta’s valleys and watercourses
Alien crayfish have invaded Malta’s valleys, study finds

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