Gonopod tips without a prominent shoulder. Hooks present on bases of second and third pairs of walking legs. Adults typically are burgundy red with a black wedge-shaped pattern on the abdomen. Tubercles on sides of the body and pincers are cream-colored. Occasionally adults are brownish rather than red.
Specimens taken from turbid water are often pale colored, almost tan in coloration.
Juveniles are pale gray with blackish spots laterally on the carapace and do not have a blackish wedge on the abdomen. On the ONF in both Arkansas and Oklahoma, this species preferred lentic backwater habitats, but occasionally could be found in burrows at the margins of pools. The general range of the nominate form, Procambarus acutus acutus , is from the Coastal Plain and piedmont from Maine to Georgia, from the Florida panhandle to Texas, and from Minnesota to Ohio. This form intergrades with P . This crayfish is one of Arkansas' most common statewide inhabitants.