Endangered
Hamiota altilis
Hamiota altilis
Hamiota altilis is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida), recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The color of the shell is yellow-brown to blackish, with fine rays on the posterior side. The nacre is white and somewhat iridescent. Compared to the orangenacre mucket, the finelined pocketbook has a thinner shell, is more elongated with a pointed posterior, and has a white nacre and rays on the shell.
The finelined pocketbook is somewhat oval in shape and reaches around 10 cm (4 in) as an adult.
Range and habitat
It lives in sand or gravel shoals in small to medium streams and rivers with moderate to strong currents. Hamiota altilis, the finelined pocketbook, is a freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk in the family Unionidae, the river mussels. This species is endemic to the U.S. States of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee.
Hamiota altilis is listed as endangered by the IUCN Red List, G3 Vulnerable by NatureServe, and Threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
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
It is a threatened species in the United States. The finelined pocketbook was listed as a threatened species in the United States in 1993, and critical habitat was established in 2004. Major threats to the species are dams and other alteration of river systems, sedimentation, debris removal, and water pollution.
Dam construction also isolates populations, making it impossible for populations to form in new areas due to the physical barrier. Dams and dredging of the Alabama River have affected mussel populations in that area. 230 miles of the Coosa River have been impounded by at least six dams.
Hamiota altilis 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 Hamiota altilis, Wikidata item Q308988. 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.
