Close up showing valve sculpture
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
Irus irus
<em>Irus irus</em> (Linnaeus, 1758)
Outside of left valve
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
Hinge detail of left valve
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
Hinge detail of right valve
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
View of inside of right valve showing pallial line
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
View of outside of right valve
Species
Photographer / copyright holder
Steve Wilkinson
Specimen collected by Jan Light from The Fleet, Weymouth, Dorset. Length = 20mm.
Irus irus
Distribution and status
Common
Recorded from the south and west of the British Isles and south to the Iberian Peninsula and into the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Ecology and behaviour
Lives in holes in limestone (often previously occupied by other species) or in crevices in Laminaria holdfasts. Feeds by filtering phytoplankton from the water.
Similar species
- Hiatella arctica [?]
Key identification features
- No lateral teeth and three cardinal teeth in right valve [check image?]
- Raised frill like concentric sculpture on the valve surface
- Pallial sinus triangular and short
Taxon version key
[NBNSYS0000183059]
Sort order
11020
Taxonomic group
Marine bivalve
Brittle shell up to about 2.5cm in length. Dirty white or fawn in colour. Inside white or cream often with purple stain. The degree of distortion and sculpture of the shell depends on how tightly the specimen was wedged in the cavity in grew in. The frill like concentric ridges can be very prominent.