Alabama cave shrimp

Range and habitat

The Alabama cave shrimp can be found in caves located in Madison County and Morgan County, Alabama, among them Shelta Cave (the species type locality), Bobcat Cave, Muddy Cave and the complex that comprises Hering Cave, Glover Cave and Brazelton Cave. A population occurring on the south side of the Tennessee River Valley in Cave Spring Cave was discovered during a biosurvey in February of 2025.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Habits

Freshwater crayfishes and crabs walk the bed. Dams, silt, and introduced species cut a drainage into fragments they cannot cross.

Crayfishes and crabs need cover and clean water. A named form from one creek is not interchangeable with the next drainage.

In crisis

The Alabama cave shrimp is listed as an endangered species both on the IUCN Red List and under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 since September 7, 1988. While populations in Shelta Cave have not been sighted since the early 1970s, this species population levels in the rest of its range seem to be low but stable.

The largest known population of the Alabama cave shrimp is in Bobcat cave while the species population levels and stability in Muddy Cave are unknown. Physical destruction of the caves are a threat to this species.

Alabama cave shrimp is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Alabama cave shrimp, Wikidata item Q3935149. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.