Zebra Mussel
(Dreissena polymorpha)
The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) is a small freshwater mussel. The species was originally native to the lakes of southern Russia and Ukraine, but has been accidentally introduced to numerous other areas and has become an invasive species in many countries worldwide. Since the 1980s, the species has invaded the Great Lakes, Hudson River, and Lake Travis.
The species was first described in 1769 by German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in the Ural, Volga, and Dnieper Rivers. Zebra mussels get their name from a striped pattern commonly seen on their shells, though it is not universally present. They are usually about the size of a fingernail, but can grow to a maximum length around 2 in (5.1 cm). Shells are D-shaped, and attached to the substrate with strong byssal fibers, which come out of their umbo on the dorsal (hinged) side.
INVASIVE SPECIES: They were first detected in Canada in the Great Lakes in 1988, in Lake St. Clair.[29] They are thought to have been inadvertently introduced into the lakes by the ballast water of ocean-going ships that were traversing the St. Lawrence Seaway. Another possible, but unproven, mode of introduction is on anchors and chains. Since adult zebra mussels can survive out of water for several days or weeks if the temperature is low and humidity is high, chain lockers provide temporary refuge for clusters of adult mussels that could easily be released when transoceanic ships drop anchor in freshwater ports. They have become an invasive species in North America, and as such, they are the target of federal policy to control them, for instance in the National Invasive Species Act (1996)
