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Project Noah Nature School
Fulvia tenuicostata
This is a 30 mm ribbed valve of a thin-ribbed cockle with a 2mm hole in it. The location of the hole would have coincided with the fleshiest part of the gastropod within the valves when it was alive and contained between the hinged valves. The hole looks like it is made by a mechanical drill but it is beveled.
mangrove flats
I spotted this clam shell among hundreds of others in the tidal area near mangroves. The hole in the shell would have been made by a moon snail (Polinices sordidus). These sordid moon snails seem to be devastating populations of bivalves all over the world -read this for the situation in Maine..http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012183324_apusmoonsnailonslaught.html
I refer to my previous spotting http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/836... for photos of the jelly egg mass of the moon snail - these eggs will hatch eventually to drill holes in some poor bivalve somewhere, to devour the insides !! V
My thanks to Simon Grove for the ID
Family: Cardiidae
Spotted on Feb 18, 2012
Submitted on Feb 20, 2012
2 Comments
Thanks Bernadette - I was amazed when I first heard of the moon snail -seeing those jelly masses lying next to the clam shells with holes !!
So interesting! Thanks for sharing.