Three hundred orangenacre muckets, their delicate shells the color of warm caramel, sat nestled in a wet towel by the edge of Tallatchee Creek.

A team of scientists stood nearby. They studied the clear, shallow creek and decided that a series of fast runs looked like prime mussel habitat.

The mussels, hand-reared at the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center and fitted with tiny identification tags, represent the best hope for rescuing their species from extinction. 

Alabama is the undisputed king when it comes to freshwater mollusks like the orangenacre. There are 182 species of mussels living the in the state’s rivers. No other state comes close. In fact, nowhere else in the world comes close in terms of the number of mussel species living in a single river basin. 

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