''Elliptio producta'', also known as the Atlantic spike, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

freshwater mussel Freshwater bivalves are one kind of freshwater mollusc, along with freshwater snails. They are bivalves that live in fresh water as opposed to salt water, which is the main habitat type for bivalves. The majority of species of bivalve molluscs ...

, an aquatic

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the family

Unionidae The Unionidae are a family of freshwater mussels, the largest in the order Unionida, the bivalve molluscs sometimes known as river mussels, or simply as unionids. The range of distribution for this family is world-wide. It is at its most diverse ...

, the river mussels. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

Eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

. It occurs on the Atlantic coast between the

Savannah River The Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the states of South Carolina and Georgia. Two tributaries of the Savannah, the Tugaloo River and the Chattooga River, form the norther ...

and the

Roanoke River The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the App ...

basin. It may have been extirpated from the

Ogeechee River The Ogeechee River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 26, 2011 blackwater river in the U.S. state of Georgia. It heads at the confluence of its North and South ...

system in Georgia. It lives in medium to large rivers on sand and gravel substrate.

References

producta Freshwater animals of North America Molluscs of the United States Endemic fauna of the Southeastern United States Bivalves described in 1836 Taxa named by Timothy Abbott Conrad Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Unionidae-stub