Freshwater Mussels
Unionida
Unionida is a monophyletic order of freshwater mussels, aquatic bivalve molluscs. The order includes most of the larger freshwater mussels, including the freshwater pearl mussels. The most common families are the Unionidae and the Margaritiferidae. All have in common a larval stage that is temporarily parasitic on fish, nacreous shells, high in organic matter, that may crack upon drying out, and siphons too short to permit the animal to live deeply buried in sediment.
2 branches of this order, most-observed first
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Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
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In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Unionida in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 775841.