BIRUG 19068 Venus plicata

3D Model

This bivalve mollusc is more correctly known as Circomphalus foliaceolamellosus, named by Lewis W Dillwyn, Fellow of the Royal Society, pottery and porcelain industrialist, Radical Whig politician, Geologist, and one of the twelve founders of Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade – coincidentally, both this clam and many slaves originated in West Africa.

Burrowed into the mud and sand (the Benthic zone) of the shallows they feed by filtering tiny particles from seawater; some clams also grow their own food within the shell, symbiotic algae. The circumferential annual growth rings give the age of the shell (sclerochronology), and the Oxygen 16 to 18 isotope ratios from the calcium carbonate they are made from, measured with mass spectrometry, are evidence of ancient climates (paleothermometry). The prominent projections may help protect from predators. They are first known from a mere 16 million years ago, to the present.

Scanning by Sian Miller, description by Douglas Salmon.