Critically Endangered
Theliderma sparsa
Theliderma sparsa
Theliderma sparsa is a bivalve in the family Unionidae (order Unionida), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Theliderma sparsa, the Appalachian Rockshell pearly mussel or Appalachian rockshell, is a freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk in the family Unionidae, the river mussels.
Range and habitat
In the Clinch River of Virginia there is a small, isolated population. A population in the upper Powell River in Tennessee is nearly gone. All other occurrences have been extirpated.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Captive breeding experiments have demonstrated that the mussel larvae can develop on the gills of blotched chub (Erimystax insignis) and streamline chub (Erimystax dissimilis).
In crisis
It is critically endangered due to pollution of the rivers in that it lives. Theliderma sparsa is a federally endangered species. It gained protection under the Endangered Species Act with this status in 1976.
Theliderma sparsa 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 Theliderma sparsa, Wikidata item Q28318712. 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.
