 The largest population in Tennessee is in the Big South Fork system in the headwaters of the Clear Fork system, where several hundred specimens were found in muskrat middens in the late 1980s.Several age classes of the Cumberland elktoe were represented in samples taken from throughout the larger tributaries of the Big South Fork system in Tennessee during a 1985-86 survey.This species inhabits medium-sized rivers and may extend into headwater streams where it is often the only mussel present.