page_title: Hard clam
section_title: Distribution
hierarchical_section_title: Hard clam / Distribution
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bohrspuren von Schwämmen der Gattung Cliona (Spurengattung Entobia) und Spuren inkrustrierender Serpuliden in der Klappe einer Venusmuschel der Spezies Mercenaria mercenaria aus North Carolina. Inkrustrationen und Bohrungen entstanden nach Ableben der Muschel in der leeren Klappe. English: Sponge borings (Entobia made by the genus Cliona) and encrusters on a shell of the modern hard clam, w:Mercenaria mercenaria, from North Carolina. This encrustation and boring happened after the death of the clam when the shell was empty. Français&#160;: Traces récente (dite Entobia) faite par une éponge foreuse du genre Cliona'') et traces d'organismes encroutant sur une coquille de l'espèce fr:Mercenaria mercenaria, trouvée en Caroline du Nord. L'encroutement et le "forage" de cette coquille datent d'après la mort de l'animal, quand la coquille était vide.
context_page_description: The hard clam, also known as a quahog, round clam or hard-shell clam, is an edible marine bivalve mollusk that is native to the eastern shores of North America and Central America from Prince Edward Island to the Yucatán Peninsula. It is one of many unrelated edible bivalves that in the United States are frequently referred to simply as clams, as in the expression "clam digging". Older literature sources may use the systematic name Venus mercenaria; this species is in the family Veneridae, the venus clams.
  Confusingly, the "ocean quahog" is a different species, Arctica islandica, which, although superficially similar in shape, is in a different family of bivalves: it is rounder than the hard clam, usually has black periostracum, and there is no pallial sinus in the interior of the shell.
context_section_description: Hard clams are quite common throughout New England, north into Canada, and all down the Eastern seaboard of the United States to Florida; but they are particularly abundant between Cape Cod and New Jersey, where seeding and harvesting them is an important commercial form of aquaculture. For example, the species is an important member of the suspension-feeding, benthic fauna of the lower Chesapeake Bay. 
  Rhode Island is situated right in the middle of "quahog country" and has supplied a quarter of the U.S.'s total annual commercial quahog catch. The quahog is the official shellfish of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The species has also been introduced and is farmed on the Pacific coast of North America and in Great Britain and continental Europe. It reproduces sexually by females and males shedding gametes into the water.
caption: An old quahog shell that has been bored (producing Entobia) and encrusted after the death of the clam
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