Clams come in many colors, including shades of brown, red-brown, yellow and cream They have shells consisting of two halves The halves are connected at the top The abductor muscles on each side hold the shell closed They have a foot that is used to dig into the sand They have a pair of long siphons that extrude from the clams' mantle

They inhabit the subtidal regions of bays and estuaries to about 15 meters in depth They are generally found in mud flats and firm bottom areas consisting of sand or shell fragments They can live in saltwater Home sweet home

Clams are filter feeders that feed on plankton Water and food particles are drawn in through one siphon to the gills Tiny, hair-like cilia move the water and the food is caught in the mucus on the gills The food-mucus mixture is transported along a groove to the palps that push it into the clam’s mouth The second siphon carries the water away

They usually require both males and females to reproduce Their eggs and sperm are released into the water and then fertilization takes place The eggs hatch into veligers and they live among and eat other plankton The veligers settle on rocks, wood, or the ocean bottom and start to grow their valves

Most clams stay in the same place for much of their lives but some are able to move around Burrowers move up and down through mud and sand by extending their foot Then they expand the tip of their foot to anchor themselves and pull their shelled bodies up or down in the burrow Others "swim" through the water by clapping their valves together

The largest known bivalve was a Giant Clam which weighed 734 pounds and was four feet in length The shells the Giant Clams were used as children's bath tubs and for baptismal fonts in many churches It was once thought that the Giant Clam could trap a diver underwater by closing suddenly on his or her foot, but this could only happen to a very slow or very careless diver Many animals eat clams, including eels, sea stars, whelks, and people

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