Epioblasma florentina (Yellow Blossom)

[another specialist]

Common Name/s
YELLOW RIFFLESHELL (E)
YELLOW-BLOSSOM PEARLY MUSSEL (E)
YELLOW-BLOSSOM (E)

Red List Category & Criteria EX ver 2.3 (1994)
Year Assessed 2000
Assessor/s Bogan, A.E. (Mollusc Specialist Group)
Evaluator/s Seddon. M.B. & Bogan, A.E. (Mollusc Red List Authority)

Justification The species was only surviving in South Fork River Virginia, but by 1971 it was Extinct.

History 1983 - Endangered as E. florentina (Wells et al. 1983)
1990 - Endangered as Dysnomia florentina florentina (IUCN 1990)
1994 - Endangered (Groombridge 1994)
1996 - Data Deficient (Baillie and Groombridge 1996)

Country Names United States [RE] (Alabama [RE]; Kentucky [RE]; Tennessee [RE]; Virginia [RE])

www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php?species=7869

[Sebbe]

This subspecies was historically distributed in the Tennessee River drainage and the Cumberland River (Burch, 1975). It was widespread throughout the Tennessee River drainage and had been collected from the upper Clinch River, Tazewell Co., Virginia, Middle Fork Holston River in Smyth and Washington Cos., Virginia and in the South Fork Holston River, Washington Co., Virginia. Tributaries of the Tennessee River in Alabama once contained populations, including the Flint River and Hurricane Creek, a tributary of the Flint River in Madison Co., and Bear Creek, Franklin Co., Alabama. The only collections from the main channel fo the Tennessee River were from the Muscle Shoals area in Florence and Lauderdale Cos. and in archaeological deposits in Lauderdale and Colbert Cos., Alabama (USFWS, 1985; Ortmann, 1925; Morrison, 1942). It also ranged throughout several tributaries of the Cumberland but its total distribution is not well known (including Buck Creek, Pulaski, Co., and Beaver Creek, Russell Co., and the Cumberland River, Pulaski and Russell Cos., Kentucky) (see Parmalee and Bogan, 1998).

explorer.natureserve.org/servlet/NatureServe?sourceTemplate=tabular_report.wmt&loadTemplate=species_RptComprehensive.wmt&selectedReport=RptComprehensive.wmt&summaryView=tabular_report.wmt&elKey=116898&paging=home&save=true&startIndex=1&nextStartIndex=21&reset=false&offPageSelectedElKey=889342&offPageSelectedElType=species&offPageYesNo=true&post_processes=&radiobutton=radiobutton&selectedIndexes=889342&selectedIndexes=114692&selectedIndexes=116351&selectedIndexes=115217&selectedIndexes=118984&selectedIndexes=111327&selectedIndexes=108324&selectedIndexes=106888&selectedIndexes=890252&selectedIndexes=107322&selectedIndexes=116898&selectedIndexes=113818&selectedIndexes=110562&selectedIndexes=116882&selectedIndexes=117697&selectedIndexes=117693&selectedIndexes=120618&selectedIndexes=113439&selectedIndexes=108924&selectedIndexes=111519

[surroundx]

Bogan, Arthur E. and Parmalee, Paul W. (1983). Tennessee's Rare Wildlife. Volume II: The Mollusks. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

[surroundx]

All non-nominate subspecies elevated to species status by (Williams et al. 2017).

Source:

Williams, James D., Bogan, Arthur E., Butler, Robert S., Cummings, Kevin S., Garner, Jeffrey T., Harris, John L., Johnson, Nathan A. and Watters, G. Thomas. (2017). A revised list of the freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionida) of the United States and Canada. Freshwater Mollusk Biology and Conservation 20: 33-58.

[Sebbe]

Removal of 21 Species From the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife.

Since the last recorded collections in the mid-1960s, numerous mussel surveys (1872–2005) have been done by mussel biologists from the TVA, Virginia Tech, U.S. Geological Survey, and others in rivers historically containing the species. Biologists conducting those surveys have not reported live or freshly dead individuals of the yellow blossom. This species was last collected live from Citico Creek in 1957, and the Little Tennessee River in the 1966 (Bogan and Parmalee, 1983, p. 23), and archeological shell specimens were collected from the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers between 1976 and 1979 (Parmalee et al. 1980, entire).

www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-10-17/pdf/2023-22377.pdf