Distribution Maps I: Parastacidae

I spend most of my day in Dr. Griffitts' lab [1] on the 7th floor of the Widtsoe Building (WIDB), on BYU campus. Sometimes I have to take DNA samples down to the sequencing center on the sixth floor. Many of the labs on the sixth floor do phylogenetics (mouse over for definition). I walk past their posters and see drawings of the organisms they study and where they (the organisms) live. I felt like that kind of information should be available, so I made .svg maps using Inkscape [2] and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons (the media repository for Wikipedia). Allow me to introduce them:

One of the most renowned biologists at BYU, Dr. Keith A. Crandall, is engaged in astacology (mouse over for definition). One of his students made a poster showing the distribution of the Parastacidae (which I copied):

They are freshwater crayfishes found mostly in or near Australia, with a few species found in Madagascar and South America. As I was creating this map, I discovered that there was a .png version already available [3], created using the Crayfish Taxonomy Browser.[4] Since that showed distributions for each genus found in the Parastacidae, I made maps for each of them, too:

The genus Astacoides (Malagasy crayfish) is found only in Madagascar.

The genus Astacopsis is found only in Tasmania.

The genus Cherax (called yabbies) has the widest distribution of any of the parastacids.

The genus Engaeus (Tasmanian land crayfish) is found only in the southeast of Australia.

The genus Engaewa is only found in the southwest of Australia.

The genus Euastacus (spiny crayfish) is only found in the southeast of Australia.

The genus Geocharax is only found in the southeast of Australia.

The genus Gramastacus is only found in the southeast of Australia.

The genus Paranephrops (called koura) is only found in New Zealand.

The genus Parastacoides is only found in Tasmania.

The genus Parastacus is found in South America.

The genus Samastacus is only found in the nation of Chile.

The genus Tenuibranchiurus is only found in the east of Australia.

Once I had the maps created and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, I inserted them into the taxoboxes of the appropriate articles: Astacoides, Cherax, Engaeus, Engaewa, Euastacus, Paranephrops, Tenuibranchiurus and of course, Parastacidae.[5]

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Notes:

[1] To learn about what we study in the Griffitts lab, see my post What Is It That Matt Does, Anyway?

[2] If you don't know what an .svg file is or what the program Inkscape is for, see my post Raster Graphics and Vector Graphics.

[3] It can be seen here.

[4] The page for the Parastacidae is http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/NewAstacidea/family.asp?f=Parastacidae.

[5] I didn't feel like bothering to create an article for any of the genera that didn't already have one. Also, the image on the article for Parastacidae has since been reverted since the original author of the article liked his low-res .png image better.

Image attributions:

Parastacidae distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parastacidae distribution.svg.

Astacoides distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astacoides distribution.svg.

Astacopsis distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astacopsis distribution.svg.

Cherax distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cherax distribution.svg.

Engaeus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engaeus distribution.svg.

Engaewa distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engaewa distribution.svg.

Euastacus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euastacus distribution.svg.

Geocharax distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Geocharax distribution.svg.

Gramastacus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gramastacus distribution.svg.

Paranephrops distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paranephrops distribution.svg.

Parastacoides distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parastacoides distribution.svg.

Parastacus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parastacus distribution.svg.

Samastacus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samastacus distribution.svg.

Tenuibranchiurus distribution map is by Ninjatacoshell, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tenuibranchiurus distribution.svg.