- Range:
Blue = current range
Hollow circles = former range
- Status in Kansas:
Common in eastern Kansas
- North American Status:
(From NatureServe)
This species is commonly
distributed throughout Canada and the U.S. in the Mississippi, Great Lakes, and Hudson Bay
basins. It also occurs in the Gulf of Mexico drainage area of Louisiana and Texas, and in
the Red River drainage in Texas and Oklahoma. It has been introduced to some areas as
glochidia on stocked fish hosts. It can tolerate a much wider range of habitats than many
other unionids. In the Apalachicola Basin (formed by Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and
Flint Rivers) of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, this species is historically known from 59
records from 29 sites and was considered widespread throughout the system including the
main channel and tributaries of the Apalachicola, Chipola, Chattahoochee, and Flint
Rivers.
- Comments:
The floater’s shell varies from tan to dark greenish-brown then to dark brown
in the older shells. It has no interlocking teeth. The large umbos are centered on the
shell and give the floater an inflated appearance. This mussel largely inhabits calm water
of mud, silt or sand substrate, therefore, it is usually found in ponds, oxbows,
reservoirs and slow pools of streams. Unlike most freshwater mussels that may live
decades, the floater lives only about 10 years. It gets its name from the supposed ability
to float in the water to move to a new location if conditions deteriorate. These mussels
have been seen floating but they were already dead. Evidently, the trapped gases of
decomposition cause this mussel to float.
- Fish Hosts:
common carp, bluegill, white and black crappie, gizzard shad, golden shiner, common
shiner, creek chub, white sucker, yellow bullhead, green and longear sunfish, largemouth
bass and freshwater drum
- See also the GPNC species portrait page
for the Floater.
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