Fragile shell up to 2cm in length. It is dirty white in colour but this is obscured by yellow brown periostracum. The inside is pearl white. The surface is sculptured with fine concentric and a few radiating lines.
- The hinge is parallel to the ventral margin of the shell
Found on the skulls of whales attached by byssus threads in suitable crevices.
The species has also been found on oily drill cuttings in the North Sea (Southward 2008); colonising sunken wood (Laming et. al. 2015); and from at least one cold-seep site (Ritt et. al. 2012).
Idas simpsoni
The map provided here shows the distribution of the species based on Conchological Society data held by the National Biodiversity Network (NBN). See terms and conditions.
The following datasets are included:
- Conchological Society of Great Britain & Ireland: marine mollusc records
Open an NBN Atlas interactive map of this data in a new window.
Laming, S. R., Szafranski, K. M., Rodrigues, C. F., Gaudron, S. M., Cunha, M. R., Hilário, A., Le Bris, N., & Duperron, S. (2015). Fickle or Faithful: The Roles of Host and Environmental Context in Determining Symbiont Composition in Two Bathymodioline Mussels. PLoS ONE, 10(12), e0144307.
Ritt, B., Duperron, S., Lorion, J., Sara Lazar, C., & Sarrazin, J. (2012). Integrative study of a new cold-seep mussel (Mollusca: Bivalvia) associated with chemosynthetic symbionts in the Marmara Sea. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 67, 121–132.
Southward, E. C. (2008). The Morphology of Bacterial Symbioses in the Gills of Mussels of the Genera Adipicola and Idas (Bivalvia: Mytilidae). Journal of Shellfish Research, 27(1), 139–146.
Taxon details available from MolluscaBase (AphiaID 140458):
Idas simpsoni (J. T. Marshall, 1900)
For the species account provided by Marine Bivalves of the British Isles click here.
The UK NBN Atlas entry for the species can be accessed via this link.