Pholas dactylus (Linnaeus, 1758) - Common piddock (Marine Bivalve Images)

The rocks in Cornwall are often too hard for this striking rock boring mollusc, so it is a rare find in the county. The shell itself is beautiful marked but it is also quite fragile, and easily broken. Shells are found on the south coast where there are softer rocks e.g. around St. Austell Bay, Helford Passage and Mounts Bay, where they are found in degraded Mylor Slate, fossilised timber and submarine peat deposits. All finds of this shell or ones like it such as Barnea parva, the Little piddock, should be reported to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Photographs were taken in the St. Austell Bay Area of Cornwall, where new sites for this species have recently been found; and at Chyandour Rocks, Penzance, Cornwall.

Scientific and European Names:
Pholas dactylus, Common piddock, Gewone boormossel, Pholade, gite, Grande pholade, Dattelmuschel, Grose bohrmuschel, Dattero bianco.

APHOTOMARINE

An Educational Photographic Resource and Stock Image Library
of the Sea, Maritime Environment, Marine and Rockpool Life in the
Coastal Waters of South-West England by David Fenwick.

APHOTOMARINE

An Educational Photographic Resource and Stock Image Library of the Sea, Maritime Environment, Marine and Rockpool Life in the Coastal Waters of South-West England by David Fenwick.

An Educational Photographic Resource and Stock Image Library
of the Sea, Maritime Environment, Marine and Rockpool Life in the
Coastal Waters of South-West England by David Fenwick.