Just Hanging Around in the Sea Quiz

Answer: Cockles

The 'Cardiidae' family includes more 200 species generally known by the common name of cockles. The distinctive feature is their bilaterally symmetrical heart-shaped shells. The pictured species, 'Clinocardium nuttallii' is a basket cockle (or heart cockle), which is native to the west coast of North America, from the Bering Sea to California.

Answer: Jewel Box Clams

The 'Chamidae' family consists of numerous saltwater species known as jewel boxes, or jewel box clams. The pictured species, 'Arcinella cornuta', is the Florida spiny jewelbox, which lives along the Atlantic Ocean coast of North America, between North Carolina and Florida, and into the Gulf of Mexico along the east coast of Texas.

Other members of the family include the leafy jewelbox, the cherry jewelbox and the smooth-edged jewelbox.

Answer: Geoduck

'Panopea generosa' is commonly known as the Pacific geoduck. Its shell is relatively small, 6-8 inches long, and is usually buried beneath the seabed; but this is dwarfed by its siphons which can grown to more than three feet in length. This is the world's largest burrowing clam. With an average lifespan of around 140 years, it is also one of the world's longest-lived creatures.

Answer: Bean Clams

The various species of wedge shells are also known as bean clams. Filter feeders, these clams often migrate up and down the beach with the changing tides.

'Donax vittatus' is found burrowing in the sand on recently-exposed beaches from the north-east coast of Africa to the Baltic Sea via Spain, the British Isles and Scandinavia. The shells can be white, yellow, brown, pink or violet and are usually about just over an inch long and half an inch wide. They are asymmetric and wedge-shaped, hence their name.

Answer: Oyster

The various species of oyster are divided between two families, 'Ostreidae', which contains most of the edible species, known as 'true oysters', and 'Pterioida', which includes species or pearl oysters and winged oysters. Many of the species have irregularly-shaped shells, caused by attaching themselves to rocks or other hard surfaces.

'Crassostrea virginica', known as the eastern oyster, Wellfleet oyster and American oyster, has a relatively symmetrical shell. Originally discovered in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, the population remaining there today is a fraction (around 1%) of the number that were in the region some 400 years ago.

Answer: Pen Shell

The 'Pinnidae' family of large, saltwater clams contains numerous species known collectively as pen shells. Long and triangular, the creatures that inhabit these fragile shells live anchored to the seabed using filaments they discreet known as byssus. These filaments are used to make the rare fabric known as sea silk or byssus cloth.

'Atrina rigida', or the rigid pen shell is native to the surrounding the West Indies and nearby mainland coasts. In Mexico, they are harvested both for food (similar to scallops) and for the rare black pearls they produce.

Answer: Cuttlefish

The 'Sepiidae' family includes many of the more than 120 species of cuttlefish, which, despite their name, are molluscs rather than fish. The internal shell is known as the cuttlebone. Cuttlefish range in size from just 6 inches long to as long as 20 inches; the Australian giant cuttlefish, 'Sepia apama', which can weigh in at up to 23 pounds.

The pictured 'Metasepia pfefferi' is the aptly-named flamboyant cuttlefish. A native of the tropical waters off northern Australia, southern New Guinea and in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, they are spectacular to look at. You wouldn't want to eat one, though: its flesh contains a unique poison.

Answer: Squid

There are some 304 species of squid in the 'Teuthida' order. like their close cousin, the cuttlefish, squid have eight arms are two (usually) longer tentacles. Squid families come with some exotic-sounding names: armhook squid, bush-club squid, comb-finned squid, whip-lash squid and rhomboid squid, to name but a few.

No less exotic is the 'Cranchiidae' family of some 60 species of glass squid, of which our pictured example is one. They are also known as cockatoo squid, cranchiid and bathyscaphoid squid. 'Cranchia scabra' grow to a length of about six inches in length and live in the partially sunlit, shallow waters of the upper ocean.

Answer: Sea Cradle

Although formally called loricates or polyplacophorans, chitons are commonly called sea cradles or coat-of-mail shells. Found worldwide in both warm and cold waters, they mostly live in shallow water where there is plenty of sunlight, although some species have been found as deep as 20,000 feet below the surface. They are usually found clinging to rocks or other hard surfaces.

'Tonicella lineata', or the lined chiton, is one of the most colourful species within the class. native to the north Pacific. They are found on both sides of the ocean, from Alaska to California, and from eastern Russia to northern Japan.

Answer: Limpet

Historically called the 'Docoglossa', species within the 'Patellogastropoda' clade are commonly known as true limpets. Members of the alternative 'Vetigastropoda' clade, although also called limpets, are also known as sea snails. Almost exclusively found strongly adhering to hard surfaces, mostly rocks, their teeth are made from the iron-based mineral goethite, one of the strongest known substances.

'Fissurella volcano' is commonly known as the volcano keyhole limpet. It is commonly found clinging to the underside of rocks along the Californian coast of the Pacific Ocean.