Museum, University of Nebraska State
Date of this Version
April 1994
Abstract
Little known, but hauntingly beautiful and valuable to the environment as well, clams and mussels inhabit many Nebraska lakes and rivers. In the first survey of the entire Platte River, the authors found 11 species.
We surveyed mollusks (clams and snails) of the Platte River during the summers of 1990 and 1991. With the exception of the Big Bend reach of the river in Dawson, Buffalo, and Hall counties, no mussels were found in the river's main channel. But in backwaters, lakes and sand-pits along the river, we found 11 species of mussels at 49 different sites from east to west across the state. Among them we found the Asiatic clam, a non-native, pest species, for the first time in the state, placing it several hundred miles west of the present eastern population of eastern Iowa and Missouri
Comments
Published in NEBRASKAland 72:3 (April 1994), pp. 14-25. Copyright © 1994 Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.