Flat Pigtoe Mussel, 2022
mixed media on paper with metallic accents
5.125" x 7"
$97 including US shipping
From the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposal for removing 23 species from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants due to extinction:
The flat pigtoe (formerly known as Marshall's pearly mussel),
Pleurobema marshalli,
was listed as endangered on April 7, 1987 (52 FR 11162) primarily due to habitat alteration from a free-flowing riverine system to an impounded system.
The flat pigtoe was historically known from the Tombigbee River from just above Tibbee Creek near Columbus, Mississippi, downstream to Epes, Alabama (USFWS 1989, p. 3). Surveys in historical habitat over the past three decades have failed to locate the species, and all historical habitat is impounded or modified by channelization and impoundments (USFWS 2015, p. 5). No live or freshly dead shells have been observed since the species was listed in 1987.
Habitat modification is the major cause of decline of the flat pigtoe. The flat pigtoe has not been collected alive since completion of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in 1984.