is one of the natural habitats of
Monodacna colorata Monodacna colorata is native to freshened areas and
limans of the
Black Sea and the
Sea of Azov. It inhabits the lakes
Kagul,
Yalpuh, and
Kugurlui, the
Razelm-
Sinoe Lake complex (
Danube Delta), the
Kuchurgan,
Dniester and
Dnieper-Bug limans, the
Taganrog Bay, the
Mius Liman, the
Don Delta, the Kirpilsky, Kurchanskiy, Konovalovskiy, Kulikovskiy, and Polyakov limans of the
Kuban Delta and the
Temryuk Bay.
M. colorata was once present in the
Brates Lake, but became locally extinct in the 20th century due to land conversion. Since 1959 it has been recorded in the northern part of the
Caspian Sea in front of the
Volga Delta, where it was presumably introduced via ships after the opening of the
Volga–Don Canal. The species has since spread into the Volga Delta itself, the
reservoirs of the
Dnieper River, over the lower course of the Don, into the
Tsimlyansk Reservoir, the Karpovskoye, Bereslavskoye and Varvarskoye reservoirs of the Volga–Don Canal, the
Volgograd,
Saratov and
Kuybyshev reservoirs of the
Volga and the
Bolshoy Irgiz River. Prior to its appearance in the Volga reservoirs,
M. colorata has been stocked in the Kuybyshev Reservoir from 1965 to 1970 and initially did not establish, but later invaded the Volgograd and Saratov reservoirs and has been recorded in the Kuybyshev Reservoir since the beginning of the 21st century. Within the Black Sea Basin
M. colorata became abundant in the
Sasyk Lake, which was previously inhabited by marine species but has been transformed into a brackish water reservoir after getting connected to the
Danube, via a canal, in 1978. and to the
Kapchagay Reservoir in the 1970s. Since then it has spread into other water systems of the country such as the
Irtysh–Karaganda Canal. == Ecology ==