Previously found in the Tombigbee, Alabama, Coosa and Cahaba and possibly the Black Warrior rivers, it is now found only in the Alabama/Coosa River.

[2] It may already be extinct,[2] as no evidence of recruitment was found in a 2010 survey.

[4][6] It received federal protection in 1987 after construction of the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway isolated it in a bypassed meander of the Tombigbee River.

[4] At the time it was also believed to survive in the Buttahatchie, East Fork Tombigbee and Sipsey rivers, all tributaries of the Tombigbee.

[4]: 11163  It was threatened in the East Fork Tombigbee by total diversion of its Bull Mountain Creek tributary into a warm-water canal, likely altering East Fork water temperature, and in the others by various U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improvement projects.