- Range:
Blue = current range
Hollow circles = former range
A map showing counties with designated critical habitat for this species may be found
the the Kansas Wildlife Refuge
- Status in Kansas:
Threatened
- North American Status:
(From NatureServe)
This species ranges in the
Mississippi River drainage from western Pennsylvania west to Minnesota, south to eastern
Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma; in the southeast in the Tombigbee and Alabama River
systems. Most populations are stable with some decline in Minnesota and expansion in the
Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.
- Comments:
The butterfly has a dazzling, golden-yellow shell with dark, broken, radiating
rays. The overall shape, when viewed at a distance, resembles its namesake. The shells are
dimorphic as the male’s shape is flatter than the female. The shell was once valuable
in the button industry. Butterfly mussels reportedly are disappearing from many areas
where they formerly were found. A few still inhabit the best mussel sites of the Fall,
Verdigris, Neosho and Marais des Cygnes rivers. The fish hosts for the butterfly represent
three different families of native fish.
- Fish Hosts:
freshwater drum, green sunfish and sauger
|
