ANNAPOLIS, Md. – When it comes to marketing, freshwater mussels have had an exposure problem. Living on the sandy bottoms of rivers, even the most memorably named mussels can be hard for people to picture, let alone hold in their hands.
But that could soon change, thanks to a new program using 3D-imaging technology to create durable mussel shell replicas. Unlike the often brittle and sometimes extremely rare original shells, these lookalikes can be created remotely and shipped into the hands of the mussel curious.
Environmental educators and groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation plan to use these mussel replicas to introduce students, conservationists and others to the diverse world of freshwater mussels — the world’s most endangered group of animals.
“Giving someone the opportunity to hold a lifelike mussel shell in their hand is an important step toward protecting and restoring freshwater mussel populations,” said Joe Wood, senior scientist with the Bay Foundation. “Raising awareness is key.”
Many of the country’s freshwater mussels are hard to come by, with roughly one out of every three species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Another 30 are thought to have recently gone extinct in the wild, though examples of their shells are sometimes available in far-flung museums.
3D printing allows those rare specimens to be replicated and dispersed into watersheds where they may still exist and something could still be done to save them.
Staff at the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History are doing the painstaking work to prepare dozens of species to be duplicated by 3D printing, with the help of funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center.
Matthew Patterson, course leader at the center, said the project “provides opportunities to teach field biologists and the public how to identify all of the freshwater mussel species native to the United States, including the nearly 100 species listed as threatened and endangered.”
Researchers use a method that stiches multiple photographs of a single mussel shell into a 3D composite, called photogrammetry. This technology can capture the shape, texture and color of the shells, creating a model that can be used to recreate replicas with 3D printing machines.
Several mussel specimens have already been digitized and are available for viewing on the Florida museum’s page at Sketchfab, which aggregates publicly available 3D printing models.
The Bay Foundation plans to use the replicas to continue mussel conservation efforts in the Chesapeake region, focusing on water quality in rivers that support or could support more mussels. As filter feeders, mussels help clean the waters where they live, much like oysters do in saltier water. And, with names like heelsplitter, pocketbook and pigtoe, mussels come in enough shapes, sizes and places to potentially appeal to a much broader audience.
Once in hand, advocates hope these mussel replicas will help spread the word about the diverse aquatic life that clean water can support.