''Spondylus gaederopus'' is a species of 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 ...

, a thorny oyster in the family

Spondylidae ''Spondylus'' is a genus of bivalve molluscs, the only genus in the family (biology), family Spondylidae and subfamily Spondylinae. They are known in English as spiny oysters or thorny oysters (although they are not, in fact, true oysters, but ...

. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the

Mediterranean Sea 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 Eur ...

. S. gaederopus has low fecundity as they lay up to 404 858 ± 248 014 female eggs per season starting at the age of 3. Additionally, they live to be up to 18 years old.

Description

''Spondylus gaederopus'' attaches itself to the substrate with its lower valve, which is usually white, while the upper valve is usually purple. Specimens that are all white, or all purple do, however, exist.

Distribution and habitat

The distribution area of the species is limited to the

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 ...

, the

and southern

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

and northern

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. To the south is the distribution area of the closely related species ''Spondylus senegalensis''. Populations on

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

, the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

and the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

can also be attributed to the latter species. ''Spondylus gaederopus'' lives from shallow water to a depth of around 50 metres on rocky bottoms; the right-valve is cemented to the hard bottom. The colonies of this formerly very common species collapsed at the beginning of the 1980s for unknown reasons. Guido Poppe, Yoshihiro Goto: ''European Seashells.'' Volume 2: ''Scaphopoda, Bivalvia, Cephalopoda.'' Verlag Christa Hemmen, Wiesbaden 1993, , p. 72/73.

Uses

The mollusc is edible, and is consumed in

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

References

External links

Sea Life Base
Pictures of the live animal, and of the cleaned shell {{Taxonbar, from=Q287107 Spondylidae Molluscs described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus

Description

Distribution and habitat

Uses

References

Further reading

External links