Endangered
Arkansas fatmucket
Lampsilis powellii
Arkansas fatmucket is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida) — Lampsilis powellii, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The shell is brownish to olive green to tawny in color on the outside and iridescent bluish white on the inner surface. The back end of the shell of the male is pointed and that of the female is rounded.
This mussel, a bivalve mollusc in family Unionidae, is oblong oval in shape and can reach over 10 centimeters in length.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to Arkansas in the United States, where it occurs in the Ouachita, Saline, and Caddo River systems. It is one of two mussels endemic to Arkansas, the other being speckled pocketbook (Lampsilis streckeri). The mussel occurs in deep pools with enough water flow to remove debris, but it does not occur in riffles or impounded pools that lack water flow.
It often lives next to river islands with stands of water willow (Justicia americana) in water about a meter deep.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
During breeding the male releases sperm and the female siphons it from the water.
In crisis
The fertilized eggs remain in the gills of the female. This mussel is threatened by a number of processes.
Arkansas fatmucket is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Arkansas fatmucket, Wikidata item Q3017558. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
