Crayfish of the World

Hello Crayers,
this book is product of a passion, and of a yearning for a complete overview over the crayfish of the world, which remained unfulfilled until the authors took its realization into their own hands. Their passionate interest in this animal group finally nudged them to undergo this work themselves. In order to produce this book, they had to sort through their extensive collection of scientific papers on the subject, which they had hitherto amassed rather erratically, driven by interest, and to systematically complete it, until they had information on practically all the crayfish species known to this day.
In the course of this, they intensified their contact with other crayfish specialists in all the world, visiting quite a few of them on different continents, in order to delve even more deeply into the world of crayfish and to learn first-hand information and experiences. Gathering all the information available on these crustaceans was their focus, but as important was their aim to get high-quality pictures of as many species as possible. What that means when you’re dealing with around 750 different species is probably only fully understandable to those who have also been part of such a project. Photographing all these crayfish themselves may have been their first goal, however, an entire lifetime would probably not suffice to achieve that. Traveling the world in order to search for all the species and - even more importantly - to find them and to take a picture, would be almost impossible. An extrovert, highly sociable personality was really helpful to get pictures from specialists in all the world. Unfortunately, material of some species was unavailable, and the authors went to great lengths to find quite a few of these crayfish during their travels to record them for posterity.
In the course of time, the authors have collected such a lot of material that it was very hard to put all that information into one book and to find a publisher for it. Crayfish are a very special subject, and it isn’t easy to convince a publishing house to spring for a book with over 800 color pictures. Unfortunately, the medium “book” underlies certain constrictions, and therefore it has been impossible to cram the entire information available on crayfish today into it. For this reason, you are holding a digest in your hands - we could almost call it a world-wide “crayfish catalog”, which contains the most important basic facts about each species, meant to provide all those interested in these fascinating crustaceans with a systematic overview of the intriguing world of crayfish. This book is directed at the layman as well as the specialist, in order to give them the possibility to appreciate the manifold colors and forms, the life strategies and behavioral repertoire of these interesting animals.

Chris Lukhaup為德國知名觀賞無脊椎動物研究者、攝影師與水族專業作家，長年專注於淡水螯蝦、蝦類與其他水族無脊椎動物的分類研究與生態記錄。他早年為音樂人，後轉向自然生物研究，逐漸投入螯蝦與淡水生物的觀察、繁殖與野外採集工作，並多次深入南美、亞洲與大洋洲熱帶地區進行實地調查與物種紀錄。
他已參與並描述多種新螯蝦物種，包括多個Cherax屬新種，並以高品質攝影與系統性整理聞名於國際水族與甲殼類研究領域。其著作與合作出版品超過百篇與多部專書，其中代表作《Crayfish of the World》被視為全球螯蝦圖鑑的重要參考書之一。
此外，Chris Lukhaup長期為歐洲水族產業與專業雜誌撰稿，亦擔任自然生物攝影與水族設計相關顧問，對全球觀賞無脊椎動物的推廣與研究具有重要影響力。