Evolution on the Half Shell...

The Assembling the Tree of Life: Bivalvia project (BivAToL) is a part of the Assembling the Tree of Life initiative, a large research effort sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Its goal is to reconstruct the evolutionary origins of all living things.

Jetsam & Flotsam

Back to Florida...

In November 2009, the three BivAToL PIs (Paula Mikkelsen, Rüdiger Bieler, Gonzalo Giribet) plus the three new postdocs (Sid Staubach, Ilya Temkin, Stephanie Clark) spent a week in Florida to collect additional bivalve target species.

Following Ft. Pierce, the three PIs spent an additional few days in the subtropical Lower Florida Keys to scuba dive on the reef and sample the shallow waters of Florida Bay. More...

 
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Bivalve of the Day

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Mactrotoma fragilis photo

Fragile Surf Clam

Mactrotoma fragilis (Gmelin, 1791)

Family Mactridae (Surf or Trough Clams)

Bivalve siphons come in many shapes and sizes. Mactrid siphons are fused almost to the tip and are sometimes sheathed with periostracum (the outer organic layer of the shell), the yellow flaky material on the posterior (at right) slope of this juvenile from the Florida Keys. Mactrotoma fragilis ranges from North Carolina, through the Caribbean and Central America, and to Uruguay in South America. It’s larger cousin the Surf Clam (Spisula solidissima) supports a commercial fishery in North America (think fried clam strips!!). The shells of some larger species were used historically as food and scraping tools by native peoples in North America and Australia.

From “Seashells of Southern Florida: Bivalves,” Princeton University Press