''Limecola balthica'', commonly called the Baltic macoma, Baltic clam or Baltic tellin,Sartori, André F. (2016)
''Limecola balthica'' (Linnaeus, 1758).
In: Sartori, André F. (2016). Limecola balthica (Linnaeus, 1758). In: MolluscaBase (2016).

World Register of Marine Species The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is a taxonomic database that aims to provide an authoritative and comprehensive catalogue and list of names of marine organisms. Content The content of the registry is edited and maintained by scien ...

(accessed 2016-07-08) is a small 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 ...

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

in the family

Tellinidae The Tellinidae are a family of marine bivalve molluscs of the order Cardiida. Commonly known as tellins or tellens, they live fairly deep in soft sediments in shallow seas and respire using long siphons that reach up to the surface of the sedimen ...

(the macomas and tellins).

Appearance

The shells are smooth, relatively flat, oval or somewhat trigonal in shape, and less than 30 mm long.''Macoma balthica'' (Linnaeus, 1758)
Marine Bivalve Shells of the British Isles. National Museum Wales (2014) The shell color is polymorphic, varying between individuals and between localities. Often most specimens are white, sometimes most are pink, and also yellow and orange shells may occur. Color is best visible in worn-out dead shells and inside the shell. Concentric growth rings indicating the age of the specimen are often clearly visible.

''Macoma balthica'' var. ''nivea''
Right and left valve of the same specimen: File:Macoma balthica 01.jpg, Right valve File:Macoma balthica 02.jpg, Left valve

Ecology and habitat

''Limecola balthica'' is an

infaunal Fauna (: faunae or faunas) is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding terms for plants and fungi are ''flora'' and ''funga'', respectively. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively r ...

bivalve, living buried in the mud or

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...

, and extending its two narrow

siphon A siphon (; also spelled syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in an inverted "U" shape, which causes a liquid to flow upward, abo ...

s to the bottom surface. Through the siphons, it feeds on organic matter on the sediment surface or in the water. ''Limecola balthica'' 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, capable of living in a wide range of water

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

, down to 3-4 permille, i.e. 10% of ocean salinity. It usually lives in the

intertidal The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various sp ...

or shallow subtidal, and is common in estuaries and bays. In the

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

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 lives submerged down to water depths over 100m.

Distribution

''Limecola balthica'' lives in the northern parts of both the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

and

Pacific ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

s, and also extends to the

Subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of hemiboreal regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Fennoscandia, Northwestern Russia, Siberia, and the Cair ...

both in North America and in Europe. The European distribution ranges from southern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

north to the

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

and

Pechora Sea The Pechora Sea (, ) is an Arctic sea to the north-west of European Russia, forming the south-eastern portion of the Barents Sea. It is bordered to the west by Kolguyev Island; to the east by Vaygach Island's western coasts and the Yugorsky ...

, and also includes the inner brackish parts of the

.Strelkov, Petr; Nikula, Raisa; Vainola, Risto (2007) ''Macoma balthica'' in the White and Barents Seas: properties of a widespread marine hybrid swarm (Mollusca: Bivalvia). - Molecular Ecology, 16, 4110-4127, In eastern North America, ''L. balthica'' is distributed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence Bay north to

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay (usually historically), is a large body of Saline water, saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba, and southeast o ...

, in the Pacific from

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

to the

Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea ( ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Alaska, and west of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a Hydrography, hydrographer. T ...

in Alaska, and also on the Russian coast. Along the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts (Oregon to south), ''M. balthica'' is replaced by a similar species '' Limecola petalum''.Baltic macoma

Alaska Department of Fish and Game The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) is a department within the government of Alaska. ADF&G's mission is to protect, maintain, and improve the fish, game, and aquatic plant resources of the state, and manage their use and development i ...

, species fact sheet.

References

External links

''Macoma balthica'' (Linnaeus, 1758)
Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Image:Macoma balthica-Nl.jpg, Shell color polymorphism Image:Macoma baltica1pl.jpg, Inner and outer shell surface Image:Ecomare - nonnetje (pcd01082-nonnetje-sd).jpg {{Taxonbar, from=Q805778 Tellinidae Molluscs described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus