Critically Endangered
Tar River spinymussel
Parvaspina steinstansana
Tar River spinymussel is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida) — Parvaspina steinstansana, recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to United States.
Appearance
Tar River spinymussels are a shade of yellow/brown when young but as they grow they become darker brown.
The larger Tar River spinymussels don't grow larger than roughly 5.5 cm (2.2 in).
Range and habitat
This species is found in North Carolina. When the recovery plan was introduced, the three main populations of Tar River spinymussel were found in the main part of Tar River and in Swift Creek. The mainstream part of the Tar River contains two small populations while Swift Creek contains one larger population.
GBIF currently lists 67 occurrence points. Those points follow where people logged the taxon — museum drawers and surveys included — not a closed range boundary.
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
Surveys done by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission from 2014 to 2020 found only 11 individuals over the course of high-sampling efforts. This indicates that the population is still on the decline. There are currently fewer than 5 populations of Tar River spinymussels.
Runoff water from agriculture, residence, and construction sites contain chemical pollutants that are a major threat to the extant populations. It includes listing history, review history, population distribution, and factors that have been threatening the population.
Tar River spinymussel 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 Tar River spinymussel, Wikidata item Q107336463 and GBIF occurrence geography. 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.
