#2 Clam

#2 Clam

Common Name: Clam 

Description: 

- Each clam has two siphons (round openings in the clams mantle cavity where water comes in and goes out, water contains bits of food that the clam gathers and then eats). Two shells that are fastened together at the back by the elastic hinge like ligaments. The clam has no head, no biting mouth parts, and no arms or legs. Clams move by a "foot".

- Foot in clams is used for digging 

- Foot in mussels secretes byssal threads to anchor the shell to rocks and piers.

- Filter feeders

- Colour: white/gray

- Size: 1mm to 1m

1.) Visceral mass - containing the organs of the animal.

2.) Mantle - thin layer of tissue that can excrete calcium carbonate to make shell material.

3.) Foot - muscular body part

- Open circulatory system 

Taxonomy

- Kingdom: Anamalia

- Phylum: Mollusca

- Class: Bivalvia (pelecypoda)

- Order: Veneroida or Unionoida

- Family: Veneroidae or Unionidae

- Genus: Mercenaria

- Species: M. mercenaria

Ecology

- Clams are a major source of food worldwide. They play a key role in food chains, they filter plankton from the water and are preyed by fishes, mollusks, and mammals. They maintain water quality through their ability to filter large amounts of water everyday (about 50 litres of water/per clam per day).

- Popular motifs in art work

- Most (hard) clams live four to eight years.

- Bivalve mollusks like clams, also include oysters and mussels.

- Clam's shells consists of two, usually equal halves.

- Feeding habits: water enters the clams body through one siphon, from there it flows into the gills. The gills trap food and capture oxygen from the water. The cilia, which are in the clams gills, catch the particles of the undigested food and water is released through the ex current siphon.
- A clam doesn't have to work very hard for its meals. Its main food, which is plankton, is a mass of very small water organisms. Water currents carry the plankton right into the clam.