Littleneck clam facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Littleneck clam |
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The Leukoma staminea, often called the Pacific littleneck clam, is a type of bivalve mollusc. This means it's a soft-bodied animal with a shell made of two parts, like a mussel or oyster. It belongs to the family Veneridae, which includes many kinds of clams.
These clams have been an important food source for people in North America for a very long time. For example, the Chumash people in Central California gathered these clams about 1,000 years ago in Morro Bay. You can still find piles of their old shells, called middens, near where they used to live.
Contents
What Does a Littleneck Clam Look Like?
Like other clams in its family, the Pacific littleneck clam has a shell that feels chalky. The shell has two equal-sized parts, called valves, that are oval or heart-shaped. The widest part of the shell is more than a quarter of its length. These clams usually don't grow longer than 6 cm (2.4 in).
The top, oldest part of the shell, called the umbo, points towards the front of the clam. Inside, the hinge that connects the two shell halves has three strong "teeth" on each side. Along the bottom edges of the shells, there's a row of tiny teeth. The shell also has many circular ridges, like growth rings, and sometimes clearer ridges that go out from the center. This clam has a large foot it uses to move and dig.
Where Do Littleneck Clams Live?
The Leukoma staminea clam lives in the eastern Pacific Ocean. You can find it along the coasts of North America, from the Aleutian Islands and Alaska in the north, all the way down to Baja California in the south.
These clams usually live in calm areas, like bays or protected shores. They prefer to bury themselves in sand, hard mud, or gravelly clay. They live from the middle to lower parts of the shore, down to depths of about 10 m (33 ft). They are usually buried less than 8 cm (3 in) deep in the sand. Sometimes, you might find them in more open spots, tucked into cracks in rocks filled with gravel, or even inside empty burrows made by other clams.
How Littleneck Clams Live and Eat
Pacific littleneck clams are filter feeders. This means they eat tiny living things from the water, like microscopic algae (such as dinoflagellates, diatoms, and cyanobacteria). They pull water in, filter out the food, and then push the water back out.
Clams and Toxins
Some of the tiny algae that clams eat can produce natural poisons called neurotoxins. One example is saxitoxin. When clams eat these algae, the toxins can build up in their bodies. This is called bioaccumulation. If people eat clams with too many of these toxins, they can get sick with something called paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).
Even though this can happen, people, including Native Americans, have eaten these clams for a long time. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sets safety limits for seafood. Seafood is considered unsafe if it has more than 80 μg of PSP-causing toxins per 100 grams of seafood tissue.
Toxin levels are often higher in the summer months, but seafood can have toxins at other times too. Different types of seafood hold onto toxins for different amounts of time. Littleneck clams usually have lower toxin levels and get rid of them faster than some other clams, like butter clams or blue mussels. This is because littleneck clams have a special enzyme that can change the saxitoxin into a less harmful form. However, it's important to remember that you can still get PSP from littleneck clams if they have too many toxins. Always make sure seafood is safe to eat.
Predators and Life Cycle
Many animals like to eat littleneck clams. These include snails like the leafy hornmouth snail and Lewis's moon snail. Crabs, such as the Dungeness crab and Cancer productus, also hunt them. The giant Pacific octopus and the sea otter are also predators. Sometimes, fish like the Pacific staghorn sculpin will nip off the clam's siphons when the clam extends them to feed.
In the northern parts of their range, these clams usually lay their eggs during the summer. They are slow-growing creatures and can live for up to sixteen years!
