The painter's mussel, scientific name Unio pictorum, is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of medium-sized freshwater mussel

Mussel

The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...

, an aquatic

Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through its skin. Natural environments and the animals that...

 bivalve mollusk in the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Unionidae

Unionidae

Unionidae is a family of freshwater mussels, the largest in the order Unionoida, the bivalve mollusks sometimes known as river mussels, naiads, or simply as unionids.The range of distribution for this family is world-wide...

, the river mussels.

This species lives in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

This is called "painter's mussel" because the shell was historically used as a conveniently sized and shaped receptacle for holding artist's paint.

Distribution

Its native distribution is Europe.

• Croatia
• Czech Republic - in Bohemia, in Moravia, least concern
  Least Concern
  Least Concern is an IUCN category assigned to extant taxon or lower taxa which have been evaluated but do not qualify for any other category. As such they do not qualify as threatened, Near Threatened, or Conservation Dependent...
  
   (LC); Czech code, Decree for implementation, No. 395/1992 Sb. (and No. 175/2006 Sb.) - Critically Threatened species.
• Germany
  • endangered (gefährdet).
  • Listed as specially protected species in annex 1 in Bundesartenschutzverordnung.
• Netherlands - Common (algemeen)
• Slovakia - not in red lists
• Sweden - not so common, scattered occurrence
• British Isles
  British Isles
  The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
  
  - mostly in England

Biotope: water bodies and slower streams.

External links

• http://www.biolib.cz/en/taxon/id2993
• http://clade.acnatsci.org/mussel/m/mom/archive/2005/05-11.html
• Pesticides Database - Chemical Toxicity Studies