- Range:
Blue = current range
Hollow circles = former range
- Status in Kansas:
Common in eastern Kansas
- North American Status:
(From NatureServe)
This species is distributed
throughout the entire Mississippi River drainage from Lake Winnipeg-Nelson River system to
western Ontario, the middle Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River system and tribtaries of Lake
Michigan, Lake St. Clair, and Lake Erie; Pennsylvania west to Minnesota and Iowa south to
Oklahoma and Louisiana, and in the Alabama River drainage. It also ranges west into Kansas
and Nebraska. It is considered stable throughout its range.
- Comments:
The white heelsplitter is a large flattened mussel shaped similar to a dinner plate
with a flat, narrow-edged wing extending from the dorsal margin. As its name implies, this
wing is so narrow-edged it could split your heel if you stepped on it with a bare foot. It
has notable fine ridges on the umbo that resemble the number 3. Internally, this shell is
entirely white with undeveloped lateral teeth that fail to interlock. This mussel is often
found in the pools or slow runs of rivers, small perennial creeks and even reservoirs.
- Fish Hosts:
banded killifish, common carp, green sunfish, orangespotted sunfish, largemouth bass
and white crappie
- See also the GPNC species portrait page
for the White Heelsplitter.
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