Critically Endangered
Cracking Pearlymussel
Hemistena lata
Cracking Pearlymussel is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida) — Hemistena lata, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The shells may reach up to 69 millimetres (2.7 in) in height The outer coloring of the shell varies from yellow to brown, while the interior of the shell is pale bluish white, with a purple beak cavity.
Range and habitat
This species is native to the United States, where it remains only in Tennessee and Virginia. It was originally distributed in the Ohio River, Cumberland River and Tennessee River systems, but it has been extirpated from most of its previous range. Parmalee and Bogan reported that there were still populations in the Clinch River in Tennessee.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Freshwater mussels bury in the bed and live for decades if the river still runs and the host fish still spawn.
In crisis
Other populations that are known to survive are located in the Powell and Elk Rivers. The main threats to the continued existence of this species are habitat changes due to damming of rivers, silting of rivers due to erosion caused by construction, farming and logging, and poisoning due to agricultural and industrial pollution. Fish and Wildlife Service has created a recovery plan for this species.
As of the most recent 5 year review, the cracking pearlymussel is still critically endangered and has not met the recovery goals.
Cracking Pearlymussel is Critically 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 Cracking Pearlymussel, Wikidata item Q3014920. 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.
