Queensland<\/a> to South Australia, from rainforests to alpine bogs.<\/p>\nThey grow by regularly moulting their hard shell and have to survive at least five years before they can reproduce.<\/p>\n
Across the species, they face threats from feral pigs and foxes, poachers, and the degradation of the shady creeks and banks that many of the species call home.<\/p>\n
But Whiterod says their main threat is climate change, which is raising the temperature of the water, drying out the creeks and making their habitat more susceptible to bushfires.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is all conspiring to make them a highly threatened genus,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re assessing all the species and for all of them there\u2019s worrying signs for their extinction risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2019-2020 bushfires scorched the habitat for an estimated 40% of the species.<\/p>\n
Whiterod says fire itself can raise water temperatures that can kill crayfish. It also strips shade from the overhead canopy, causing water temperatures to rise. The surrounding scorched undergrowth can\u2019t hold on to the sediments and when it rains, the soils and ash then flush into creeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can\u2019t physiologically cope and they will just cook,\u201d says Whiterod.<\/p>\n
Climate change is raising the water temperature, drying out creeks and making the habitat of the spiny crayfish more susceptible to bushfires. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
WWF-Australia has funded scientific work that has led to eight spinies being listed as critically endangered.<\/p>\n
The charity\u2019s conservation scientist, Dr Stuart Blanch, says spinies are \u201cthe canaries in the coalmine for many species living in the delicate ecosystems of our mountain streams\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe survival of spinies depends on transitioning away from fossil fuels and stabilising global temperature increases to no more than 1.5C,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u2018Instantly obsessed\u2019<\/p>\n
Scully first got interested in spinies when he was out looking for threatened frogs \u201cand then this huge rock just moved\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was this enormous crayfish. I\u2019d never seen anything like it. I was instantly obsessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whiterod says most scientists who start studying the species \u201cget hooked\u201d in the same way.<\/p>\n
Ecologist Ollie Scully says he first got interested in spinies when he was looking for threatened frogs \u2018and then this huge rock just moved\u2019. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not the obvious thing to get obsessed about \u2013 people usually go for the furry things \u2013 but they\u2019re incredibly captivating. They get under your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of those hooked by the spinies is Rob McCormack. He first got interested in the early 1980s when he was farming yabbies \u2013 another freshwater crayfish in a different group than the spinies, whose scientific name is Euastacus.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost people know the yabby, but the spinies are a different kettle of fish,\u201d says McCormack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was looking at all these weird and wonderful species, and they were mainly the Euastacus. We were cultivating them and that gave me an insight. Then when I sold the business, I started investigating them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re incredibly long-lived \u2013 I could show my children a crayfish in a pool and they could bring their children back and show them the same crayfish in the same pool.<\/p>\n
\u2018Most people know the yabby, but the spinies are a different kettle of fish, researcher Rob McCormack says. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
McCormack has been investigating the spinies full-time for 20 years, helping identify new species and map their whereabouts. He\u2019s now a research associate with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the engines that drive the whole river system,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re not a species people should be catching and eating, or putting in a fish tank.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor one to reach maturity and replace an adult, it\u2019s maybe a 1,000 to 1 chance. So these are the food sources for all the other animals to live on. Healthy crayfish populations mean healthy streams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Whiterod and McCormack have witnessed major die-offs of spinies, where sharp drought and then fire have killed off whole populations. Decades-old spinies gone in a flash.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven enough time, they should recover,\u201d he says. \u201cBut if that becomes a regular theme from climate change, then these populations are never going to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nightfall comes early under the dense cloak of the rainforest canopy and Ollie Scully \u2013 boots off and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[85,46,141,386],"class_list":["post-481163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}