Researchers rejoice at rediscovery of tiny Tasmanian crayfish thought to be extinct

It was relatively early in his career when crayfish expert Alastair Richardson encountered the short-tailed rain crayfish.

He found a few back in the 70s, while doing some collecting in the old King River Valley in Tasmania’s remote west.

He bottled the specimen all those years ago, but after decades of no sightings, the small cray was thought to be extinct.

“We had [found] six animals, they came from three localities, and two at that time were under Lake Burbury and so the questions was, ‘does it still…