Critically Endangered
Louisiana pearlshell
Margaritifera hembeli
Louisiana pearlshell is a bivalve in the family Margaritiferidae (order Unionida) — Margaritifera hembeli, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
It is dark brown or black in color with a white nacre. The Louisiana pearlshell, Louisiana pearlshell, is a rare species of bivalve mollusk in the family Margaritiferidae.
It grows to a length of about 10 cm (4 in) and lives on the sand or gravel stream-bed in riffles and fast flowing stretches of small streams.
Range and habitat
This freshwater mussel is native to Louisiana in the United States, and was previously present also in Arkansas. Because of its limited range and its population decline, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated this mollusk as being critically endangered.
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
Louisiana pearlshell 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 Louisiana pearlshell, Wikidata item Q3018832. 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.
