Kingdom Animalia Family Asellidae Scientific name Caecidotea nickajackensis Higher classification Caecidotea Order Isopods | Subphylum Crustacea Genus Caecidotea Phylum Arthropoda Rank Species | |
Caecidotea nickajackensis is a species of isopod crustacean in the family Asellidae. It was endemic to a single cave in Tennessee, and is thought to have been exterminated when that cave was flooded in 1967 by the building of the Nickajack Dam.
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Distribution
Caecidotea nickajackensis is only known to have occurred in Nickajack Cave, Tennessee, before the building of the Nickajack Dam by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1967. Two other obligate stygobionts were exterminated in the same action – the pseudoscorpion Microcreagris nickajackensis and the ground beetle Pseudanophthalmus nickajackensis.
Conservation
C. nickajackensis is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List, and as a "species of concern" under the Endangered Species Act. It was extirpated from Nickajack Cave in 1967, and is now thought to be extinct.
Taxonomy
Caecidotea nickajackensis was first described by Alpheus Spring Packard, in an 1881 publication by Edward Drinker Cope and himself, titled The Fauna of Nickajack Cave. A second species, C. richardsonae, was described from the same cave by William Perry Hay in 1901, and was thought to be a junior synonym of C. nickajackensis for a long time. It is now recognised as a separate species distributed from Alabama to Virginia.