Critically Endangered
Popenaias popei
Popenaias popeii
Popenaias popei is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida) — Popenaias popeii, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Popenaias popei, common name the Texas hornshell, is a freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk in the family Unionidae, the river mussels.
Range and habitat
Being part of the Unionidae, Texas hornshells are found in freshwater, specifically in rivers. To prevent from being carried downstream, P. Popeii prefer habitats within the river where they can anchor to material like clay or sand. Furthermore, their habitats must be within a certain range of salinity, as too high of a salinity concentration can lead to detrimental outcomes among them death.
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
P. Popeii is currently listed as federally endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, joining many other freshwater mussel species that are a conservation concern. Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered classification of P. Popeii is accompanied by federal protection, more research efforts are still being carried out to investigate key factors that may be useful in developing effective mitigation plans. The evolutionary differences among P. Popeii populations caused by long-term fragmentation are being taken into account, meaning that conservation efforts in Black River and Rio Grande will be different and more individualized.
Anthropogenic effects are also of major concern, among them water and land usage that accompany the increasing human population.
Popenaias popei 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 Popenaias popei, Wikidata item Q2887026. 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.
