Common names from other countries
Classification / Names / Names
Common names | Synonyms | Catalog of Fishes (gen., sp.) | ITIS | CoL | WoRMS
Environment: milieu / climate zone / depth range / distribution range
Ecology
Benthic; depth range 0 - 482 m (Ref. 88171). Temperate, preferred 7°C (Ref. 107945); 77°N - 35°N, 120°W - 45°E
Northern Atlantic and the Arctic: from Bay of Cadiz Spain, north to Iceland, and from Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, USA to the Canadian Arctic. Subtropical to polar.
Length at first maturity / Size / Weight / Age
Maturity: Lm ?, range 2 - 4.1 cm Max length : 13.0 cm SHL male/unsexed; (Ref. 88171); common length : 7.6 cm SHL male/unsexed; (Ref. 360)
Shell: moderately swollen, thick and robust valves, almost circular, equivalved and inequilateral; has a thick dark brown to blackish periostracum; sculpture consists of thin concentric grooves; well-developed external ligament, reaching the end of the posterior margin of the valve, posterior to the umbones; hinge is heterodont, right and left valves each has three cardinal teeth, anterior and posterior lateral teeth; inside the valves are two slightly different muscle scars (dimyarian, anisomyarian), linked by a continuous pallial line (integropalliate), without a sinus; crossed-lamellae structure. Body: pair of gills each consists of two series of lamellae extensively linked by interlamellar junctions (eulamellibranch); foot is large and the two mantle lobes fuse to form two stout siphons.
Minimum depth from Ref. 7726. Maximum shell height at 13 cm (anterior-posterior: from the whorl to opposite shell edge) in the Northeast Atlantic. Considered one of the slowest growing clam species in the world and extremely long-lived with an age record of 374 years. As an endobenthic species, population threats include anthropogenic factors such as mechanical damage, oxygen deficiency/eutrophication, unintentional habitat dislocation, temperature and osmotic stress brought by climate change, and, on a major scale, increased trawl fishery in the North Atlantic (Ref. 88171).
Life cycle and mating behavior
Maturity | Reproduction | Spawning | Eggs | Fecundity | Larvae
Members of the class Bivalvia are mostly gonochoric, some are protandric hermaphrodites. Life cycle: Embryos develop into free-swimming trocophore larvae, succeeded by the bivalve veliger, resembling a miniature clam.
Harvey-Clark, C. 1997. (Ref. 7726)
IUCN Red List Status (Ref. 130435: Version 2024-1)
CITES status (Ref. 108899)
Not Evaluated
Not Evaluated
Human uses
Fisheries: commercial
FAO - Fisheries: landings, species profile | FishSource | Sea Around Us
Tools
Internet sources
Estimates based on models
Preferred temperature
(Ref.
115969): 6.6 - 10.9, mean 9.8 (based on 204 cells).
Resilience
Low, minimum population doubling time 4.5 - 14 years (K=0.02-0.2; tm=4.5).
Prior r = 0.47, 95% CL = 0.31 - 0.70, Based on 1 full stock assessment.
Vulnerability
High vulnerability (56 of 100).
