The Rocky Mountain

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 capshell, Acroloxus coloradensis, is a very small, freshwater limpet or snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, 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 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...

 gastropod in the family Acroloxidae

Acroloxidae

Acroloxidae, commonly known as river limpets, are a taxonomic family of very small, freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod limpet-like mollusks with a simple flattened conical shell in the clade Hygrophila....

.

Distribution and conservation status

This freshwater limpet lives in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and in Canada.

The Western population that lives in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 and in Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 in Canada was categorized into "not at risk" category by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada ; French: Le Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d’être is to identify species at risk" in Canada...

 (COSEWIC)

However, the Eastern population, which lives in Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 and in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, was categorized as "Data Deficient

Data Deficient

Data Deficient is a category applied by the IUCN, other agencies, and individuals to a species when the available information is not sufficient for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made...

" (DD) by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada ; French: Le Comité sur la situation des espèces en péril au Canada, is an independent committee of wildlife experts and scientists whose "raison d’être is to identify species at risk" in Canada...

(COSEWIC)