Overview
The Salina mucket is historically known to occur in the Rio Grande downstream of its confluence with the Rio Conchos and the Rio Salado in Mexico, but has been reduced to a single population in the Rio Grande upstream of Lake Amistad. Like many other freshwater mussels, the Salina mucket has a unique life cycle that requires the use of a host fish, likely the freshwater drum, to transform the immature larva stage into a self-supporting juvenile mussel. The species is medium-sized and has a shell that is brown, tan or black in color.
Scientific Name
Identification Numbers
Characteristics
Habitat
Adult Salina mucket occur in medium to large rivers, generally in nearshore habitats and crevices, undercut riverbanks, travertine shelves and under large boulders adjacent to runs. Small-grained material, such as clay, silt or sand, gathers in these crevices and provides suitable anchoring substrate. These areas are considered flow refugia from the large flood events that occur regularly in the river this species occupies.
A natural body of running water.
Food
Like all other freshwater mussel species, Salina mucket are filter feeders that feed and survive on organic particulate matter, bacteria and algae that are filtered from the water column. Juvenile mussels live in the sediment and most likely feed interstitially rather than from the water column, using the relatively large muscular foot to sweep organic and inorganic particles found among the substrate into the shell opening.
Physical Characteristics
The Salina mucket is a medium-sized freshwater mussel with an ovate outline and has a somewhat inflated shell. The species is sexually dimorphic, with male shells more pointed along the posterior end and females more broadly rounded and truncate.
Measurements
Mature adult length: More than 120 mm
The Salina mucket shell has a brown, tan or black periostracum, which is the outermost shell surface. Younger individuals occasionally have faint green rays, or lines of color, on the periostracum.
Life Cycle
Little reproductive information is available for the Salina mucket. Based on a closely related congener species, bleufer (P. purpuratus), spawning is believed to occur in the fall, brooding occurs over winter, with the release of glochidia occurring the following spring. Therefore, the species is considered a long-term brooder, or bradytictic. Host fish inoculation strategies are largely unknown for the species, but the Salina mucket most likely uses conglutinates, which are packages of glochidia shaped as food items, to infest fish hosts.
For Salina mucket, freshwater drum (Aplodinotus grunniens) have been identified as suitable host fish. However, this is the only fish species tested in laboratory experiments and other species could serve as ecological hosts in the wild.
Longevity is not known for the Salina mucket. However, Haag reported in 2012 that bleufer (P. purpuratus) have a maximum life span of 10 years and age at maturity of 0 to 2 years, with a mean fecundity of 417,407.
Geography
Endemic to the lower Rio Grande System, Mexico and Texas, the Salina mucket historically occurred in the Texas portion of the Rio Grande drainage in the United States and Mexico. The species was described from the Rio Salado south of Nuevo Laredo in the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico a tributary to the Rio Grande. However, the current status of the species at its type locality in Mexico is unknown and presumed extirpated. Currently, the species is known to occur in a single population upstream of Lake Amistad in the main stem Rio Grande.
Timeline
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