''Cerastoderma glaucum'', the lagoon cockle, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of saltwater

clam Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc. The word is often applied only to those that are deemed edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams h ...

, a marine

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

in the family Cardiidae, the cockles. This species is found along the coasts of Europe and North Africa, including the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

and

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

s and the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, described as the List of lakes by area, world's largest lake and usually referred to as a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, ...

, and the low-salinity

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. It is a

euryhaline Euryhaline organisms are able to adapt to a wide range of salinities. An example of a euryhaline fish is the short-finned molly, '' Poecilia sphenops'', which can live in fresh water, brackish water, or salt water. The green crab ('' Carcinus m ...

species living in salinities 4-100 ‰.Russell PJ, Petersen GH (1973) The use of ecological data in the elucidation of some shallow water European ''Cardium'' species. ''

Malacologia ''Malacologia'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of malacology, the study of mollusks. The journal publishes articles in the fields of molluscan systematics, ecology, population ecology, genetics, molecular genetics, evolution, an ...

'' 14:223–232Nikula R, Väinölä R (2003) Phylogeography of ''Cerastoderma glaucum'' (Bivalvia: Cardiidae) across Europe: A major break in the Eastern Mediterranean. ''

Marine Biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

'' 143: 339-350 In north-west Europe (including the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

), it typically does not live on open shores but rather in shallow

burrow file:Chipmunk-burrow (exits).jpg, An eastern chipmunk at the entrance of its burrow A burrow is a hole or tunnel excavated into the ground by an animal to construct a space suitable for habitation or temporary refuge, or as a byproduct of Animal lo ...

s in saline

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...

s, or sometimes on lower shores in

estuaries An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

. It cannot tolerate significant exposure to the air. The form found in lagoons is thinner-shelled than the estuarine populations. Retrieved 29 July 2012. The lagoon cockle can grow to the length of 50 mm. In north-west Europe, it spawns in May–July, and the

plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...

ic larval phase takes 11–30 days. The life span of the settled cockle is typically 2–5 years. The species was described as ''Cardium glaucum'' in 1789 almost simultaneously both by Bruguière and by Poiret.

''Cerastoderma glaucum''
Right and left valve of the same specimen: File:Cerastoderma glaucum 01.jpg, Right valve File:Cerastoderma glaucum 02.jpg, Left valve

''Cerastoderma glaucum lamarcki''
Right and left valve of the same specimen: File:Cerastoderma glaucum lamarcki 01.jpg, Right valve File:Cerastoderma glaucum lamarcki 02.jpg, Left valve

References

External links

Cardiidae Molluscs of the Atlantic Ocean Molluscs of the Mediterranean Sea Molluscs of the Black Sea Marine molluscs of Europe Molluscs of Europe Marine molluscs of Africa Marine molluscs of Asia Bivalves of Asia Bivalves described in 1789 {{Cardiidae-stub