Hi Conch-L'ers,

I haven't been nearly as active on Conch-L in recent years as I used to be, mainly due to overriding considerations (extended divorce proceedings, work, kids, etc.), but I recently dug out some of my river mussels and have been trying to work through the ID's.  I know, I know, I once said if anyone ever saw me start working on bivalves to just go ahead and have me committed, since I would have obviously lost my mind, but...since there aren't many marine gastropods in the Piney Woods of east Texas, and I already had a lot of mussel shells that I collected or people gave me, I thought I'd try to make sense of them.

The ones that are currently perplexing me are the Fusconaia species, and some that look like they are probably Fusconaia.  Howells et. al. as well as Strecker recorded only Fusconaia flava from the Trinity River, so I had all my Trinity River shells branded with that name.  Since then, I've discovered that more and more of the Trinity shells are being called Fusconaia askewi (even by Howells), although many of them are fairly different morphologically from shells that I have from the Neches River which I KNOW are Fusconaia askewi.

Here are some links to pics of shells.  Can you mussel experts help me make sense of them, and if possible, give me pointers on separating them?  All the shells from both rivers are simlarly inflated/compressed, except for a couple of large, pointed, pink-nacred shells from the Neches that are comparatively compressed (not shown in pics).

http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/qq238/fo_teef/TrinityFusconaiaExt.jpg

http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/qq238/fo_teef/TrinityFusconaiaInt.jpg

http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/qq238/fo_teef/NechesFusconaiaExt.jpg

http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/qq238/fo_teef/NechesFusconaiaInt.jpg

http://i451.photobucket.com/albums/qq238/fo_teef/Fusconaia_composite_dorsal_side_Lab.jpg

Many thanks,



Don

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