Unionids

In 1975 Aleta painted the Canadian species of unionid mussels for Arthur Clark's 'Freshwater Molluscs of Canada,' and we subsequently collected shells for the Canadian Museum of Nature as we encountered them. With the invasion of Zebra Mussels in the 1980s, it became critical to find and keep track of populations of these subtly lovely bivalves, and we soon became intrigued by variations and parallelisms in shell morphology, as well as the distribution of species. A 2004 survey found that we held the 4th largest collection of unionids in Canada. We've since discovered, predicted, or participated in the discovery of all the newly found populations of endangered species of mussels in Ontario east of Toronto, and have monitored the survival of "zebraed" unionid populations in the Mississippi, South Nation, and St Lawrence rivers.