AGFC biologist discovers two new crawfish

LITTLE ROCK — Two new species of crawfish have been discovered by an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission biologist, including one that’s named for him.

Brian Wagner was researching rare salamander

in the Eleven-Point River in northern Arkansas in 2005 when he came across some unusual crawfish. Wagner says the mud bugs were slightly different than any he had ever seen and believed they were a mixture of a couple of different species.

Wagner shipped some examples of the crawfish to the University of Illinois for analysis. After examining the crustaceans, the university reported that they were not hybrids but something totally different.

Earlier this month, researchers released a journal describing the new crawfish species that named one of them Faxonius Wagneri for Wagner, although its common name is the Eleven Point Crayfish.

Judge says 6 farmers can spray dicamba on crops

LITTLE ROCK — An Arkansas judge has authorized six farmers who challenged a ban on the in-crop use of dicamba to spray the herbicide on their crops this summer while their colleagues remain under a statewide ban on its use.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that the farmers had sued the state Plant Board in November for banning the use of dicamba from April 16 through Oct. 31.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox on Friday dismissed the lawsuit, citing the state’s sovereign immunity. But Fox says that the farmers’ rights to due process and their right to appeal the Plant Board’s ban on dicamba had been curtailed.

Arkansas enacted the ban after receiving nearly 1,000 complaints last year about the weed killer drifting onto fields and damaging crops not resistant to the herbicide.