Stirrupshell 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 stirrupshell (Quadrula stapes) 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. Adult stirrupshells were quadrate in shape and reached a size of approximately 2 inches long and 2 inches wide. The stirrupshell differed from other closely related species by the presence of a sharp posterior ridge and truncated narrow rounded point posteriorly on its shell, and it had a tubercled posterior surface.
Freshwater mussels of the Mobile River Basin, such as the stirrupshell, are most often found in clean, fast-flowing water in stable sand, gravel, and cobble gravel substrates that are free of silt. They are typically found buried in the substrate in runs. This type of habitat has been nearly eliminated in the Tombigbee River because of the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which created a dredged, straightened navigation channel and series of impoundments that inundated much of the riverine mussel habitat.
The stirrupshell was historically found in the Tombigbee River from Columbus, Mississippi, downstream to Epes, Alabama; the Sipsey River, a tributary to the Tombigbee River in Alabama; the Black Warrior River in Alabama; and the Alabama River. Surveys in historical habitat over the past three decades have failed to locate the species, as all historical habitat is impounded or modified by channelization and impoundments (Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers) or impacted by sediment and nonpoint pollution (Sipsey and Black Warrior Rivers). No live or freshly dead shells have been observed since the species was listed in 1987. A freshly dead shell was last collected from the lower Sipsey River in 1986.