Foraging native mussels

[BilletHead]

19 minutes ago, tjm said:

In the Elk or Illinois drainage? Not 'coons? Grandpa  must have been mistaken, so what did make those piles? I don't even know if 'coons eat the things. AFAIK we didn't have otters in the '50s.

Honestly I don't look hard or seine the gravel or anything, but you  know what? I didn't do that as a ten year old either. So,  maybe what i played with wasn't mussels at all?

                Between Stockton and Truman Lake on the sac river.  Wasn't your grandpa the one who told you whitetail deer were not Native to Southwest Missouri?   I would say racoons would eat them if they could get inside a weak one. There is also a thin shelled one like I said they might be able to crunch into.  I will tell you those thick shelled ones that are healthy and strong are hard to open without a tool. Where floods and big flow discharge events occur and when river goes down gravel bars are littered with them. They dry and die. Now that would be a feast for the coons! 🤪

[tjm]

Not that deer weren't native, just that there weren't any in this area for a long time,

I didn't play on the Sac in the '50s, but in my memories of crossing it before Truman was built it didn't look much like these creeks. "some areas" does not mean all areas. I' never talked to Barnhart, so no doubt you know more than I. I did read somewhere that thousands or dozens of species of mussels were lost or endangered by the damming of the White. That makes me wonder if you mussels are even the same species? Not that it matters at all but those shells I saw were probably squirrel eggs shells.

Carry on.

[thebiologist]

51 minutes ago, tjm said:

Not that deer weren't native, just that there weren't any in this area for a long time,

I didn't play on the Sac in the '50s, but in my memories of crossing it before Truman was built it didn't look much like these creeks. "some areas" does not mean all areas. I' never talked to Barnhart, so no doubt you know more than I. I did read somewhere that thousands or dozens of species of mussels were lost or endangered by the damming of the White. That makes me wonder if you mussels are even the same species? Not that it matters at all but those shells I saw were probably squirrel eggs shells.

Carry on.

 

 

 

Thousands or dozens???

 

 

There are 83-85 mussel species native to Arkansas....14 are endangered...1 extirpated.

[MoCarp]

I have seen muskrats gather and eat mussels, they seem to open them with ease….have used a shell half with lure for a trapping attraction everything seems interested, coons do eat mussels but if you see empties in a pile it’s mostly certainly muskrats…up around Nevada north seems to be a lots of mussels, even In the ponds….unsure of the species, I never took the time to key any out…but these are very large and lack the scallop wing looking shell structure of the ones I find in riffle areas near Carthage heal splinters if I recall…I read somewhere zebra and the larger quagga mussels were good to eat…

https://mdc.mo.gov/field-guide/search

[BilletHead]

            

5 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

I have seen muskrats gather and eat mussels, they seem to open them with ease….have used a shell half with lure for a trapping attraction everything seems interested, coons do eat mussels but if you see empties in a pile it’s mostly certainly muskrats…up around Nevada north seems to be a lots of mussels, even In the ponds….unsure of the species, I never took the time to key any out…but these are very large and lack the scallop wing looking shell structure of the ones I find in riffle areas near Carthage heal splinters if I recall…I read somewhere zebra and the larger quagga mussels were good to eat…

https://mdc.mo.gov/field-guide/search

           Yes, the top one is what I see in ponds. Really thin and easy to break. That bottom one is more the river type thick shelled.

[tjm]

1 hour ago, thebiologist said:

Thousands or dozens???

IIRC the line was "unknown hundreds of species" or something that effect. But that doesn't matter. What ever I saw was over 60 years ago and I wasn't a biologist. Hadn't even heard of biologists even.

btw, welcome to the forum

[tjm]

30 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

empties in a pile it’s mostly certainly muskrats…

Thanks. There were muskrats here then, guess I think of them as vegetarians.

[BilletHead]

20 minutes ago, tjm said:

Thanks. There were muskrats here then, guess I think of them as vegetarians.

                  I have seen those real fat ones eating fish guts at Bennitt springs. 

[BilletHead]

37 minutes ago, tjm said:

Thanks. There were muskrats here then, guess I think of them as vegetarians.

           Hey @tjm,

   Hey, we both learned something. Ferocious little beasts,

What Do Muskrats Eat? - Feeding Nature

         Funny though the link picture is a Beaver 🙄

[tjm]

 

11 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

 Funny though the link picture is a Beaver

Not long ago, a week or three, either someone told me or I read it here that he'd seen beavers eating trout at RRSP.  Might have been the local preacher I can't recall, but maybe beavers eat the same things as those muskrats. Like I said I'm not a biologist.