Quagga mussel
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| iQuagga Mussel | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Dreissena bugensis |
The Quagga mussel (Dreissena bugensis) is one of seven Dreissena species. This species is indigenous to the Dnieper River drainage of Ukraine.
The Quagga mussel was first observed in North America in September 1989 when it was discovered in Lake Erie near Port Colburne. It was not identified as a distinct species until 1991. The species was called the Quagga Mussel after the Quagga an extinct species of African zebra, possibly because, like the Quagga, its stripes fade.
It causes many of the same problems (damaging boats, power plants, and harbors and destroying the native mussel population) as the equally invasive Zebra mussel of Russia. It is also displacing native burrowing amphipod (Diporeia hoyi) from the deep waters of Lake Erie.
The Quagga mussel shell is striped, as is that of the Zebra mussel, but the Quagga shell is paler toward the hinge. There are a large range of shell morphologies, including a distinct morph in Lake Erie that is pale or completely white.
In 1994, invasive species biologist Anthony Ricciardi determined that yellow perch did not find the invasive dreissenid species palatable. In 2004, he determined that yellow perch, over the intervening 10 years, had developed an appetite for the Quagga mussel. While sounding like good news, it is tempered with the knowledge that it introduces contaminants into the food chain, notably Clostridium botulinum.
