(Lovén, 1846)

Description (shell):
Shell is fragile, inequilateral, anterior ears at least three times as long as the posterior. Almost equivalve, a small byssal notch in the right anterior ear. Circular in outline, except for the ears. Surface is smooth with fine radiating and concentric lines, but without coarse sculpture except on the anterior ear of the right valve which has 4-6 coarse ribs. Growth stages are clear. Lower margin of byssal notch with teeth which continue along the suture between the valve and the ear, almost to the beaks. Margin is smooth.

Size:
Up to 19 mm in length.

Colour:
Colour very variable, made up into a great variety of patterns of white, cream, grey, pink, yellow, orange, brown or purple and all shades of each.

Animal:
Lives attached by a byssus when small, later free and capable of swimming by the opening and rapid closing of the valves. The foot is developed as a finger-like organ, occupied in the spinning of byssal threads, which pass through the ears. The mantle margin is double, the inner finely fringed and the outer edged with long tentacles, and at their base gleam a row of large and brilliant ocelli (eye-spots).

Habitat:
Lives offshore between 7- 157 m, normally on bottoms of muddy or gravelly sand.

Distribution:
Not in the southern North Sea. Distributed along the west coasts to the Shetlands and occur from southern Iceland and northern Norway, Skagerak to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean (Distr. P. furtivum).

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Subclass Pteromorphia
Order Pterioida
Family Pectinidae
Genus Palliolum
Species Palliolum furtivum

Status in World Register of Marine Species

Accepted name: Palliolum furtivum (Lovén, 1846)

Scientific synonyms and common names

Pecten furtivus Lovén, 1846
Chlamys furtiva
Palliolum testae
Pecten incomparabilis

Hayward, P.J., Wigham, G.D. & N. Yonow, 1990. Mollusca I: Polyplacophora, Scaphopoda, and Gastropoda. In: The Marine Fauna of the British Isles and North-West Europe. (ed. P.J. Hayward & J.S. Ryland). Clarendon Press, Oxford: 628-730.

Jensen, A.S. & R. Spärck, 1934. Saltvandsmuslinger (Bløddyr II). Danmarks Fauna, 40. G.E.C. Gads Forlag, København. 208 pp.

Seaward, D.R., 1990. Distribution of the marine molluscs of north west Europe. Nature Conservancy Council.

Step, E., 1927. Shell life. 421 pp. Frederick Warne & Co., LTD, London.

Tebble, N., 1966. British Bivalve Seashells. 212 pp. Trustees of The British Museum (Natural history). London.

Wagner, H. P., 1991. Review of the European Pectinidae. Vitra Marina, 41(1): 1-48.

You can continue searching for Palliolum furtivum on one of these Web sites:

Fauna Europaea (animals) | IOPI (plants) | NCBI (genetic)

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