Pontastacus

Pontastacus is a genus of freshwater crayfish native to eastern Europe and western Asia, but also introduced elsewhere.

Pontastacus
Pontastacus leptodactylus (museum specimen)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Malacostraca
Order:	Decapoda
Suborder:	Pleocyemata
Infraorder:	Astacidea
Superfamily:	Astacoidea
Family:	Astacidae
Genus:	Pontastacus Bott, 1950
Species
See text
Synonyms
Astacus (Pontastacus) Bott, 1950 Caspiastacus Starobogatov, 1996

Classification and phylogeny

Pontastacus belongs to the family Astacidae, one of the three families of Northern Hemisphere freshwater crayfish within the superfamily Astacoidea. The internal phylogeny of Astacidae can be shown in the cladogram below:

Astacidae	Pacifastacus Astacus Pontastacus Austropotamobius

Species

Nine species are recognized:

• • Pontastacus cubanicus (Birstein & Vinogradov, 1934) - Black Sea, Russia
  • Pontastacus danubialis Brodsky, 1981 - Danube Delta lakes, Ukraine
  • Pontastacus daucinus Brodsky, 1981 - Danube Delta lakes, Ukraine and Moldova
  • Pontastacus eichwaldi (Bott, 1950) - Caspian Sea
  • Pontastacus kessleri (Schimkewitsch, 1886) - Turkestan
  • Pontastacus leptodactylus (Eschscholtz, 1823) - around the Black Sea and other aquatic systems in eastern Europe and Turkey; widely introduced elsewhere - "Turkish crayfish"
  • Pontastacus pachypus (Rathke, 1837) - Caspian Sea, Black Sea, Sea of Azov - "Caspian crayfish"
  • Pontastacus pylzowi (Skorikov, 1907) - eastern part of Transcaucasia
  • Pontastacus salinus (von Nordmann, 1842) - Black Sea