Dreissena bugensis
| Quagga Mussel | |
|---|---|
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| One valve of Dreissena bugensis | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Bivalvia |
| Subclass: | Heterodonta |
| Order: | Veneroida |
| Superfamily: | Dreissenoidea |
| Family: | Dreissenidae |
| Genus: | Dreissena |
| Species: | D. bugensis |
| Binomial name | |
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Dreissena bugensis Andrusov, 1897 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Dreissena rostriformis bugensis |
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Dreissena rostriformis bugensis
The quagga mussel, scientific name Dreissena bugensis, and also known as Dreissena rostriformis bugensis, is a species (or subspecies) of freshwater mussel, an aquatic bivalve mollusk in the family Dreissenidae.
This freshwater mussel has an average life span of 3 to 5 years.
This subspecies is indigenous to the Dnieper River drainage of Ukraine. The species is named after the quagga, an extinct subspecies of African zebra, possibly because, like the quagga, its stripes fade out towards the ventral side.
The quagga mussel is currently of major concern in the Great Lakes of North America as an invasive species brought by overseas shippers that use the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The quagga mussel shell is striped and/or zig-zagged, as is that of the zebra mussel, but the quagga shell is paler toward the end of the hinge. There is a large range of shell morphologies, including a distinct morph in Lake Erie that is pale or completely white. The quagga is slightly larger than the zebra mussel, about 20 millimetres (0.8 in) wide, roughly about the size of an adult human's thumbnail. The quagga has a rounded carina and a convex ventral side.
The quagga mussel is a filter feeder. It uses its cilia to pull water into its shell cavity through an incurrent siphon and it is here that desirable particulate matter is removed. Each adult mussel is capable of filtering one or more liters of water each day, where they remove phytoplankton, zooplankton, algae, and even their own veligers. Any undesirable particulate matter is bound with mucus, known as pseudofeces, and ejected out the incurrent siphon. The particle-free water is then discharged out the excurrent siphon.
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Wikipedia