Scallop

Rare card · No. 26881

Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve molluscs in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, this common name is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families within the superfamily Pectinoidea, which also includes the thorny oysters. Scallops are a cosmopolitan family of bivalves found in all of the world's oceans, although never in fresh water. They are one of very few groups of bivalves to be primarily "free-living", with many species capable of rapidly swimming short distances and even migrating some distance across the ocean floor. A small minority of scallop species live cemented to rocky substrates as adults, while others attach themselves to stationary or rooted objects such as seagrass at some point in their lives by means of a filament they secrete called a byssal thread. The majority of scallop species, however, live recumbent on sandy substrates, though when they sense the presence of a predator such...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Rachael Norris and Marina Freudzon / Mayscallop at en.wikipedia, Public domain