''Acanthocardia echinata'', the prickly cockle or European prickly cockle, is a species of saltwater clam,

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

s in the family

Cardiidae A cockle is an edible marine bivalve mollusc. Although many small edible bivalves are loosely called cockles, true cockles are species in the family Cardiidae. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Cardiidae Lamarck, 1809. Accessed through: W ...

. The genus ''

Acanthocardia ''Acanthocardia'' is a genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Cardiidae. Like most other bivalves, these mollusks are suspension feeders. This genus is present from the Upper Oligocene to the Recent. Species * ''Acantho ...

'' is present from the Upper

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

to the Recent. The prickly cockle was one of the many invertebrate species originally described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomen ...

'', where it was given the binomial name ''Cardium echinatum''. The yellowish-brown shell is up to 75 mm in diameter, and is adorned by 18 to 22 spiny ridges. Its margin is crenulate and its inner surface is white, and also prominently grooved. The prickly cockle is found in the British Isles and northwestern Europe. It lives within a few centimetres of the sea bottom, at depths of 3 m or more. Dead shells are commonly washed up on the beach.

File:Acanthocardia echinata 03.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata''
Right valve File:Acanthocardia echinata 04.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata''
Left valve

File:Acanthocardia echinata 01.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata duregni''
Right valve File:Acanthocardia echinata 02.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata duregni''
Left valve

File:Acanthocardia echinata 05.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata mucronata''
Right valve File:Acanthocardia echinata 05.jpg, ''Acanthocardia echinata mucronata''
Left valve

References

External links

* Cardiidae Bivalves described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Cardiidae-stub