''Elliptio mcmichaeli'', the fluted elephantear, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

freshwater mussel Freshwater bivalves are one kind of freshwater mollusc, along with freshwater snails. They are bivalves that live in fresh water as opposed to salt water, which is the main habitat type for bivalves. The majority of species of bivalve molluscs ...

, an aquatic

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, biv ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is es ...

in the family

Unionidae The Unionidae are a family of freshwater mussels, the largest in the order Unionida, the bivalve molluscs sometimes known as river mussels, or simply as unionids. The range of distribution for this family is world-wide. It is at its most dive ...

, the river mussels. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to the Escambia and

Choctawhatchee River The Choctawhatchee River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map , accessed 15 April 2011 river in the southern United States, flowing through southeast Alabama and the Panhandle o ...

systems in the southeastern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. As of 2014, its

NatureServe conservation status The NatureServe conservation status system, maintained and presented by NatureServe in cooperation with the Natural Heritage Network, was developed in the United States in the 1980s by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as a means for ranking or catego ...

is "imperiled."

References

Molluscs of the United States mcmichaeli Molluscs described in 1956 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Unionidae-stub