Bivalves make their shell from calcium carbonate. They literally crystallize it from ions in the water around them on a scaffold of protein. (4)
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📌x📌x📌 . . . etc = (🧵∞) the world's longest bivalve thread!
sep 1, 2025, 10:13 am • 1 0 • view
Pearls are an immune response of bivalves to irritants, disease or other contamination in the shell. There is even a parasitic fish that lives in shells called pearlfish, so named because they're occasionally entombed in pearl (5)
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📌
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Some freshwater mussel larvae species get upstream by attaching to fish. Their parents use elaborate lures to convince fish to take a bite, and the larvae then attach forcefully to the gills, letting go upstream. (6)
jul 22, 2025, 3:31 am • 67 2 • view
Some clams in the deep sea essentially eat sulfide or methane for food (partnering with symbiotic bacteria). They are are model animals for astrobiologists investigating potential undersea life on other worlds (7)
jul 22, 2025, 3:33 am • 81 3 • view
Shipworms are actually clams that eat wood. They are sometimes called the clams that sank 1000 ships (8)
jul 22, 2025, 3:34 am • 77 5 • view
Some bivalves make byssal threads to attach to surfaces. The noble pen shell makes a particularly valuable form called sea silk, woven into gloves and stockings worn by Roman emperors and Queen Victoria (9)
jul 22, 2025, 3:36 am • 67 3 • view
Scallops have hundreds of eyes which they use to navigate while swimming and to recognize predators (10)
jul 22, 2025, 3:37 am • 67 3 • view
Wow, TIL; didn't realize shellfish like that could see.
jul 29, 2025, 3:26 am • 2 0 • view
Each scallop eye is like a miniature mirror telescope, with a retina formed from reflective guanine crystals (11)
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The planktonic larvae of a clam (and some other mollusks) is called a veliger. (12)
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Some bivalves, particularly in extreme environments, brood their young within their shells to improve their chances of survival (13)
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In the temperate latitudes, most clams slow down growth in the winter. A minority of clams may stop growth at high temperature in the summer. In the tropics, most grow year-round (14)
jul 22, 2025, 3:43 am • 46 1 • view
Got a pond? A calm lake? Care about our environment? Our Future? 💦 Consider these clams 👇
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