What was this creature?!

[EllieQuinn]

We live in a suburban area in the south east, and on a recent walk we had a look in a stream and saw this creature- it’s a rubbish photo but can anyone identify it? It looked to be about 20cm long or so, which rules out crayfish I think. We’re nowhere near the sea but my kids were convinced it was a lobster! I took a little video of it but don’t think I can upload video on here.

It’s a crayfish. Signal crayfish can easily be 20 cm.

The introduced American crayfish can get pretty big. Sadly they eat other crayfish so are a real menace

I don’t think the photo attached

Oh wow quick responses thank you!

Definitely a crayfish.

They are much bigger than the native British crayfish and out competing them in Britain. That looks like a signal to me, and it’s likely that would be what it was in the SE. Did you see the underside of its claws at all? They would be red on a signal crayfish

Yup, definately a crayfish - almost certainly, as said, American Signal Crayfish AKA Red Clawed Crayfish, significantly bigger than our native crayfish and can carry a virus which affects the latter. Just as Grey Squirrels carry a squirrel pox which decimates our native Red Squirrel population. Alien invasive species nearly always bring trouble with them. Signal crayfish are good to eat though, so some benefit comes from them