GEORGIA — After more than a decade of going unseen and nearly believed to be extinct, a rare freshwater species native to Georgia was seen out in the wild.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources confirmed that some of its researchers found specimens of the federally endangered Altamaha spinymussel.
The spinymussel is distinctive for one of its more unique features, a set of four to six spines that grow out of its shell.
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It’s been on the endangered species list for a long while, but in mid-August, DNR reported one had been found in the Ocmulgee River.
DNR Aquatics Biologist Zach Schumber was digging into the bottom of the Ocmulgee in early July when he felt a large mussel.
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When he pulled it loose, DNR said Schumber “nearly spit out his snorkel.”
In his hands was an Altamaha spinymussel, a species that hadn’t been seen since 2011. That same year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added it to the endangered list.
When Schumber found the critter, it was popularly believed the species had already gone extinct.
DNR said the species has been in decline since the late 1970s, for reasons that are still a mystery, according to DNR’s Matt Rowe, who leads the Wildlife Conservation Section’s Freshwater Biodiversity Program.
“Me and pretty much everybody I talked with was about ready to call them extinct,” Rowe said in an August publication by DNR.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to state officials about the rare find, DNR said the species is only found in the Altamaha River Basin.
That means it’s found in Georgia “and nowhere else on Earth.”
“While there are 130 species of freshwater mussels in Georgia, and many of them rare, the Altamaha spinymussel is unique,” Rowe said. “Its shell has four to six spines up to an inch long, making it a very distinctive animal and a true symbol of Georgia’s unique, but hidden, aquatic biodiversity.”
Rowe said the rediscovery of one of the spinymussels was “heartening” and helped wildlife officials hold on to “a glimmer of hope” that the species isn’t beyond saving.
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