Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 8, 2026

Astacoidea

Astacoidea is superfamily of freshwater crayfish that live in the Northern Hemisphere. The other superfamily of crayfish, Parastacoidea, lives in the Southern Hemisphere. Astacoidea consists of three families: Astacidae, Cambaridae, and Cambaroididae. Crayfish are closely related to lobsters, as shown in the simplified cladogram below.

Last revised
Jun 8, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
269 w
Citations
3
Source
Astacoidea
Temporal range: Late Triassic - present
Austropotamobius pallipes
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Suborder: Pleocyemata
Infraorder: Astacidea
Superfamily: Astacoidea
Latreille, 1802
Families

Astacoidea is superfamily of freshwater crayfish that live in the Northern Hemisphere. The other superfamily of crayfish, Parastacoidea, lives in the Southern Hemisphere. Astacoidea consists of three families: Astacidae (from Europe and western North America), Cambaridae (from eastern North America), and Cambaroididae (from eastern Asia). Crayfish are closely related to lobsters, as shown in the simplified cladogram below.123

References

References

  1. Wolfe, Joanna M.; Breinholt, Jesse W.; Crandall, Keith A.; Lemmon, Alan R.; Lemmon, Emily Moriarty; Timm, Laura E.; Siddall, Mark E.; Bracken-Grissom, Heather D. (24 April 2019). "A phylogenomic framework, evolutionary timeline and genomic resources for comparative studies of decapod crustaceans". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 286 (1901). doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.0079. PMC 6501934. PMID 31014217.
  2. Crandall, Keith A.; De Grave, Sammy (2017). "An updated classification of the freshwater crayfishes (Decapoda: Astacidea) of the world, with a complete species list". Journal of Crustacean Biology. 37 (5): 615–653. doi:10.1093/jcbiol/rux070.
  3. Heather D. Bracken-Grissom; Shane T. Ahyong; Richard D. Wilkinson; Rodney M. Feldmann; Carrie E. Schweitzer; Jesse W. Breinholt; Matthew Bendall; Ferran Palero; Tin-Yam Chan; Darryl L. Felder; Rafael Robles; Ka-Hou Chu; Ling-Ming Tsang; Dohyup Kim; Joel W. Martin; Keith A. Crandall (July 2014). "The Emergence of Lobsters: Phylogenetic Relationships, Morphological Evolution and Divergence Time Comparisons of an Ancient Group (Decapoda: Achelata, Astacidea, Glypheidea, Polychelida)". Systematic Biology. 63 (4): 457–479. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syu008. hdl:10550/106842. PMID 24562813.