For those who may be familiar with searching for freshwater bivalves--
and those who might take a guess anyway,

Here's a question that Art Bogan, who co-authored The Freshwater Mussels of
Tennessee, couldn't definitively answer:

How come there are so many INTACT pairs of fragile mussels lying on the
banks of rivers? I found numerous pairs on the banks of the Withlacoochee
River in Florida and some of them still had bits of fresh adductor muscle
inside.

Art told me that most of these are probably fished out of the banks by
muskrats or raccoons. He guessed that perhaps the predators leave the
mussels out on the banks until they open.

But if they lay out for so long, either the predators have to wait an
awfully long time or competitors would reap the benefits.

There's no way the mussels could be pried open without damaging the
shell--unless they have some means of anesthetizing the mussel into relaxing
quickly?

Any ideas? Is this a job for Marty Stauffer lying in wait with his camera to
find out the truth?

David Kirsh
Durham, NC