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Hi fellow mussel hunters! Hoping everyone had as good a season as could be, given the weather related shortcomings. It's never too late to add your observations so please do so if you still have a few laying around your hard drive or flashcard somewhere!

First off you might have noticed the name change for our project: I just gave it a little tweak today after a year of not finding my initial christening completely to my liking. Always felt "Canunio" a bit clunky, didn't roll off the tongue too well, etc. It's been bugging me since coming up with it last winter, so when my light bulb moment came to me in a moment of evening slumber I knew this one was the best fit: : Canaiad"! It also had the unintended advantage of sounding like the question "Can I Add?" Why yes you can! If any of you don't like the name change at all, please let me know. We'll have a contest or something if there's a bona fide grass roots rebellion!

Also, I've just started a side-project for Canaiad, an identification guide to help along with your IDs: Canaiad's Freshwater Mussels of Canada, in the "guides" section (second tab from the right up top, next to "People"). It's going to be a work in progress for many months to come, so I'll need every one's input to fill in important field details for species I'm not personally familiar with (shout out to all you Southern Ontario, Maritimes and West Coast contributors!). I'm looking for details about lookalike species in particular, as well as quality pictures for identification criteria specific to each taxon (sculptures and dentition close-ups, cleaned-up fresh shell shots of adults, aberrant shell shapes, juveniles, soft tissues such as foot color, etc)

Thank you very much for all your contributions of 2017 , and looking forward to working with you all on this great project for years to come. Happy Holidays!

Dr. Phil

Posted on December 9, 2017 01:10 PM by redgarter