Somanniathelphusa zanklon

The crayfish or crab

Somanniathelphusa zanklon is a decapod crustacean in the family Gecarcinucidae (order Decapoda).

Range and habitat

It prefers living in slow moving streams or lowland marshes, was originally described from specimens from the lower Lam Tsuen River and the So Kwun Wat area of Hong Kong. Studies have shown that is tolerant to organic pollution, and can be found in irrigation ditches around the New Territories. Somanniathelphusa zanklon is a endangered freshwater crab considered to be endemic to Hong Kong.

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

In 2019, a large population of S. Zanklon was found at the site of further development of the Hong Kong Golf Club in Fanling.

Somanniathelphusa zanklon 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 Somanniathelphusa zanklon, Wikidata item Q14365398. 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.