The Shelta Cave Crayfish—known scientifically as Orconectes sheltae—was believed to have gone extinct after decades passed without the species being spotted. But that changed when scientists rediscovered the small crayfish in recent years.
The findings were revealed in a paper published May 20 in the journal Subterranean Biology and co-authored by Dr. Matthew L. Niemiller, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, UAH’s Katherine E. Dooley and K. Denise Kendall Niemiller, and Nathaniel Sturm of the University of Alabama.
The team made excursions into Shelta Cave in 2019 and 2020 and found individuals of the Shelta Cave Crayfish both times.
