Little Neck Clam

Facts about Little Neck Clams, "Scientific name for Little Neck Clam is Paphia staminea". Little Neck clams are a common mollusk reaped by commercial and sport or personal fisheries. The scientific name of Little Neck clam variety is Paphia staminea. These clams are also known as bay cockle or rock cockle, and they are largely found beside the Aleutian Islands, all through parts of Baja California, south to Cape San Lucas, and Alaska. These clams are most productive in the Pacific Northwest.

Features about Little Neck Clam

Both adult male and female Little Neck clams will develop at the same speed and are the identical size, ranging in body length from 1.4 inches to 2.2 inches (35 mm to 55mm).

Little Neck clams can be recognized through their oval-shaped shell with distinct, glowing ribs and less famous, elevated, concentric rings. There is a heart-outlined impression, facing the umbo, which is a limb similar to the shape of a knob, on the surface of the shell of the clam, close to the hinge. They have a highly variable body color. Generally, their body shape differs extensively, according to dissimilar localities they live. Little Neck clams that are living in sloughs and bays have a gray or yellowish gray color body, whereas those living along the open coastlines have a white color body, with geometric patterns of wavy tan lines or marks on their body sides. The inner surface of these clams is soft and white in color. The body shape of some clams is elongated and narrow, whereas some others have a short and broad body.

The shell of Little Neck clams is distinguished by its brown or cream color, its subquadrate or suboval shape and its inflated curve. Usually, these clams prefer to live in homes in a coarse or gravelly sand substrate that offers them the necessary protection from their predators and storms, and an adequately active tide to uphold the availability.

Little Neck clams have so many predators, but they are more-notoriously preyed on by octopus, moon snails, sculpin, sea stars, halibut and crabs. Some species of carnivorous gastropods will feed on these clams, as well.

Diet of Little Neck Clam

Little Neck clams will feed only on food elements that are less than 0.4 inches (10 mm) in diameter, and they mostly feed on benthic diatoms and maybe sedimentary microorganisms.

Feeding behavior of Little Neck Clam

Little Neck clams posses four highly-focused gills at the rate of two on each side of their body. The gills are employed to sort out feeding, and they pull the suspended food elements from the water. They nourish most vigorously during the flow of the wave and generally no food is found in the abdomen of these clams taken during the low wave. These clams take up dissolved materials from the water, like calcium, for the development of their shell.

Reproduction of Little Neck Clam

Usually, both male and female Little Neck clams attain the sexual maturity after 3 to 4 years of their birth. Even though genders are split in Little Neck clams, it is common to find hermaphroditic clams, having sex limbs of each sex. The spawning time of these clams differs throughout their range, counting mostly on the temperature of water. An abridged spawning time is quality of clams at the southern and northern boundaries of their range, and appears to be chiefly a temperature-associated phenomenon. In some places, spawning of Little Neck clams commences during late May when the temperature of water is 8 degrees Celsius.

The average lifespan of Little Neck clams ranges from 10 years to 13 years.