Interior view of the same shell as the previous sketch.

Last year I completed the Freshwater Mussel Workshop at the Museum of Biological Diversity at The Ohio State University. It was a great workshop that included lectures by experts, lots of time with specimens in the museum, and fieldwork in several nearby rivers.

There are a lot of species of mussels in North America, though, and many look alike to novices like me.

Much of my work in sketching mussels is about identification and gaining familiarity with each species.

I spend time on the river each week (don’t try this at home without appropriate permits, which I have) but sometimes I have to make a best guess when recording species I observe in my notebook. Later, sketching from photos and looking at my field measurements, I can usually make a more accurate determination of species.

A detailed sketch depicts an Amblema plicata, commonly known as the "Threeridge," with its scientific name and date written below.