Alabama has more species of crayfish than any other state, and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is making an extra effort to let people know about it.

Of the roughly 400 known species of crayfish, at least 97 of them can be found in Alabama, said Traci Wood, habitat and species conservation coordinator for the ADCNR's Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.

"In Alabama we are blessed with an abundance of water, which means an abundance of aquatic biodiversity," Wood said. "A lot of our invertebrates have been poorly understood and surveyed.

"We needed to start at basically ground zero basically knowing more about our crayfish fauna in the state."

Since 2013, Wood said, the department was able to get funding to increase its efforts to document the state's biodiversity, especially concerning crayfish. Wood said 14 new species have been added to Alabama's crayfish lineup since then, and more may follow as biologists continue to study Alabama's rivers and streams.

The department has now produced an educational poster highlighting several Alabama crayfish, available for free if you pick it up in person, or by mail if you pay $3 shipping costs.

"Hopefully classrooms and educators will tap into this resource because it's definitely an interesting conversation piece," Wood said. "When I ask people how many crayfish species we have in the state, they might guess five, and they're really surprised when I say 97."

Alabama's known crayfish species range in size from about 8 inches for the Tennessee bottlebrush crayfish to about one inch for the aptly named least crayfish.

"Alabama is like the Holy Grail of crayfishes," said Guenter Schuster, a biology professor at Eastern Kentucky University who has conducted numerous crayfish surveys in Alabama and was cited in the poster. "For aquatic biodiversity, Alabama really has no competition. It has the richest freshwater fauna in the country. The only state that's even close is Tennessee."

That total includes the zebra crayfish, a species new to science whose discovery in Alabama creeks was first published in scientific journals late last year.

Schuster, who helped discover the zebra crayfish and others, said the number of Alabama crayfish is likely to keep going up as new species are discovered, or more existing species are confirmed to be living in Alabama.

"The number [of crayfish species] I feel confident is going to increase," Schuster said. "It almost seems like every time we go out, we get new surprises."

The posters are available for free at any ADCNR Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries district office, or by sending a check for $3 to cover postage to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR), 64 N. Union St., Suite 106, Montgomery, Ala., 36130. Checks should be made payable to ADCNR.

The video from ADCNR and poster are embedded below.