Chlamys sp.

Chlamys sp. (commonly known as scallop)

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Bivalvia
Order:	Ostreoida
Suborder:	Pectinina
Superfamily:	Pectinoidea
Family: Genus:	Pectinidae Rafinesque, 1815Chlamys

Where seen?These little clams are sometimes seen on some of ours shores, on sandy areas near seagrasses.

Features:

4-7cm.The circular two-part shell is thick with ribs and a squarish portion at the hinge. It has a hinge with a socket-like arrangement between the valves. A single, fused adductor muscle controls the valves (this is the part that is eaten in seafood, see below). The foot is greatly reduced and there is usually no siphon. They have short tentacles and well developed but tiny eyes along the mantle edge.

Some scallops are free living. A scallop can swim by flapping its valves and using jet propulsion. It sucks in water and then forces out a jet of water from either sides of the shell hinge. A scallop can change the direction of its movement by using the velum. The velum is a curtain-like fold of the mantle that works like lips to direct the jet of water and thus control its movement.

What do they eat?

Like most other bivalves, mussels are filter feeders. When submerged, a scallop opens its valves slightly and sucks in a current of water. It uses its enlarged gills to sieve food particles out of this current.

Human uses:

Larger scallop species are harvested for seafood. Usually what is eaten is only the adductor muscle that holds the two valves together. Our wild scallops are much too small to yield the kind of scallops you can buy at the supermarket.

The flesh of the adductor muscle is sweet because it contains a high amount of gylcogen. Like other filter-feeding clams, however, scallops may be affected by red tide and other harmful algal blooms when they are then harmful to eat.

Credit: http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/mollusca/bivalvia/pectinidae/pectinidae.htm