Tag cockle

What is the difference between a clam, a cockle, a mussel, and a scallop?

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What is the difference between a clam, a cockle, a mussel, and a scallop?

The clam, cockle, mussel, scallop, and even the oyster, are all marine bivalve molluscs. Bivalve means two valves.

They all have a shell structure, called a mantle, with two valves (two halves) and a ligament hinge with two adductor muscles that enable them to open and close.

All bivalves have light-sensitive cells that can detect light and motion, even though most do not have eyes. Giant clams have simple eyes on the edge of the mantle. Scallops have more complex eyes on the edge of the mantle – they have 10-100 eyes that each have a lens, a two-layered retina, and a concave mirror.

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Cockle

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The Cockle (Cerastoderma edule) is a small marine (saltwater) bivalve mollusc. It is also called a Clam, but it is not a true clam (a true clam does not live near the bottom of the ocean).

The Cockle has a white-creamy-yellowish-brown oval-shaped shell, called a mantle, with bilateral symmetry – its two valves are the same – connected by two hinge-type adductor muscles that enable it to open and close. The mantle has many slight ridges, called ribs. It has a foot which helps it to bury itself in the ocean floor.

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