Critically Endangered
Gulf moccasinshell
Medionidus penicillatus
Gulf moccasinshell is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida) — Medionidus penicillatus, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Gulf moccasinshell, the gulf moccasinshell, is a rare species of freshwater mussel in the family Unionidae, the river mussels. The shell is yellowish or greenish brown with green rays. The nacre of the shell is purplish or greenish with some iridescence.
Range and habitat
This aquatic bivalve mollusk is native to Alabama, Florida, and Georgia in the United States, where it is in decline and has been extirpated from most of the rivers it once inhabited. This mussel is native to the ACF River Basin, the watershed of the Apalachicola, Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers around the intersection of the states of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Its range has declined 80% from the known previous distribution.
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
There are fewer than 20 occurrences and it is uncommon at most sites.
Gulf moccasinshell 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 Gulf moccasinshell, Wikidata item Q3015999. 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.
