Soft-shell clam
| Soft-shell clam or Sand Gaper Temporal range: Oligocene–Recent |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Bivalvia |
| Order: | Myoida |
| Family: | Myidae |
| Genus: | Mya |
| Species: | M. arenaria |
| Binomial name | |
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Mya arenaria Linnaeus, 1758 |
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Soft-shell clams (American English) or sand gaper (British English/Europe), scientific name Mya arenaria, popularly called "steamers", "softshells", "longnecks", "piss clams", "Ipswich clams", or "Essex clams" are a species of edible saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Myidae.
These clams live buried in the mud on tidal mudflats. They are well known as a food item on the coast of New England in the Western Atlantic Ocean; however, the range extends much farther north to Canada and south to the Southern states. They are also found in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, for example in the UK, as well as in the North Sea's Wadden Sea (where they are the dominant large clam).
This species has become invasive on the Pacific Coast of North America, including Alaska, Canada and the continental United States. However M. arenaria originated in the Pacific Ocean during the Miocene. It extended its range in the early Pliocene to the Atlantic, including European waters. The Pacific and European populations became extinct some time in the early , leaving only the Northwest Atlantic population, which subsequently spread via humans to its current distribution. It also occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.
Mya arenaria has a calcium carbonate shell, which is very thin and easily broken, hence the name "soft-shells" (as opposed to its beach-dwelling neighbors, the thick-shelled quahog).
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