Green-blossom Pearly 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 green blossom (pearly mussel), Epioblasma torulosa gubernaculum, was listed as endangered on June 14, 1976. The last known record for the green blossom was a live individual collected in 1982, in the Clinch River at Pendleton Island, Virginia.
Stream impoundment affects species composition by eliminating those species not capable of adapting to reduced flows and altered temperatures. Tributary dams typically have storage impoundments with cold water discharges and sufficient storage volume to cause the stream below the dam to differ significantly from pre-impoundment conditions. These hypolimnial discharges result in altered temperature regimes, extreme water level fluctuations, reduced turbidity, seasonal oxygen deficits, and high concentrations of certain heavy metals (TVA 1980, entire).
Siltation within the range of the green blossom, resulting from strip mining, coal washing, dredging, farming, and road construction, also likely severely affected the species. Since most freshwater mussels are riverine species that require clean, flowing water over stable, silt-free rubble, gravel, or sand shoals, smothering caused by siltation can be detrimental.