Endangered
Medionidus acutissimus
Medionidus acutissimus
Medionidus acutissimus is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida), recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
Medionidus acutissimus, the Alabama moccasinshell, is a freshwater mussel in the family Unionidae, the river mussels. This aquatic bivalve mollusk is about 3 centimeters long with a thin yellow or brownish yellow shell.
Range and habitat
It is native to Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, and possibly Florida. This mussel is native to the Mobile River drainage, where it was once widespread. The highest numbers are found in streams in Bankhead National Forest, where it is common in some areas.
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
Its numbers are now low, with only one population, in the Sipsey Fork, appearing to be stable.
Medionidus acutissimus 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 Medionidus acutissimus, Wikidata item Q3014029. 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.
