Two species found ‘nowhere else on the planet’ documented in western N.C, museum says

A feisty looking crustacean in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains is a new species found nowhere else in the world, according to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

Called the Stony Fork Crayfish, it is one of two new species revealed in research by a team of North Carolina scientists published April 20 in Zootaxa. The other species is called the Falls Crayfish.

Both creatures resemble miniature lobsters: The Stony Fork Crayfish is just under 4 inches from nose to tail, and the Falls Crayfish is slightly smaller, the museum reports.