A faunal and distributional survey of macrurans inhabiting tile Ashida river system was carried out.
1) Four species of macrura, in total, could be collected from 27 out of 77 sampling stations during a period from April to December, 1985.
2) They are. as arranged in the order of abundance, the Lake prawn Palaemon paucidens, Neocaridina denticulata, the Oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense, and the Red crawfish Procambarus clarkii.
3) The horizontal and the vertical distribution of the Lake prawn Palaemon paucidens are the most extensive, but the most discontinuous of the four collected species. This prawn inhabits within the horizontal range of 0 (estuarine dam) --- 80 km upstream and vertically 3 --- 420 m above sea level.
4) Neocaridina denticulata distributes very continuously, inhabiting mainly the middle stream of the Ashida river. The distributional range of this species is horizontally 5 --- 32 km from the estuarine dam and vertically 4.5 --- 50 m above sea level.
5) The Oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense was collected discontinuously to some extent within the range of 0 --- 21.3 km horizontally and 3 -- 115 m above sea level. However, this prawn inhabits mainly the lower stream of the Ashida river including the estuarine lake with a range of 0 --- 12 km and 3 --- 9.7 m.
6) The distrubution of the Red crawfish Procambarus clarkii is restricted to a comparatively small area with the range of 5 --- 15.5 km horizontally and 5 --- 130 m above sea level. However, for a full description, this vertical range can be divided into two sub-ranges; namely a lower one of 5 --- 7 m and a middle --- higher one of 35 --- 130m.
7) The habitat where all four species inhabit together is located in the estuarine lake, but is extremely small, and is restricted to the range of 5 --- 7 km and 4.5 -- 5.5 m.
8) Furthermore. the inter- and intraspecific distributional characters of the above- mentioned four macrurans are discussed, and the present macruran fauna is compared with that of other river systems near the Ashida river.