Freshwater Mussels of Texas report, 15Jan2017

Five people did a random shoreline freshwater mussel search at Emma Long Metropolitan Park in Travis County, Texas on January 15, 2017. Water levels in Lake Austin (Colorado River basin) were down 7.12 feet due to an intentional drawdown by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) for dock maintenance and invasive plant control. The substrate was mostly sand and silt, but there were a few stretches of cobble and boulder along the approximately 5,000 ft (0.95 mi) of Lake Austin’s north shore within this City of Austin park where the survey occurred. Monitoring began under a cool, light drizzle, but the rain quickly stopped. The rest of the afternoon was cloudy and slowly warming until the sun finally came out during the last hour or so of monitoring.

The monitoring period was 12:15 – 4:30 PM, and survey participants included Kathy, Tonja and Hunter, and Kathryn and Joel. Many non-native Asian Clams were observed, but no non-native Zebra Mussels were observed. Four native freshwater mussel species were observed:

• Giant Floater – 7 alive, 86 shells, 11 valves;
• Bleufer – 4 shells, 13 valves;
• Tampico Pearlymussel – 6 shells, 19 valves; and,
• Paper Pondshell – 2 alive, 7 shells, 3 valves.

We also found a very young Spiny Softshell Turtle that may have just hatched.

Many thanks to Marsha May (TPWD) for help with identification. Although they can be hard to tell apart, our biggest “lesson learned” was that Bleufer has less robust pseudocardinal teeth than Tampico Pearlymussel.

Posted on January 29, 2017 04:08 PM by k_mccormack