Mytilus (genus)

Mytilus is a common genus of medium to large-sized marine mussels. They are bivalve molluscs of the family Mytilidae.Powell A.W.B. 1979. New Zealand Mollusca, Collins, Auckland.  Mussels are edible, and are used in various stews and soups. In life, they are attached to the substrate (rocks etc) by byssus threads.

Species
Species within the genus Mytilus include:
 the Mytilus edulis complex:
 Mytilus edulis Linnaeus, 1758  – blue mussel, edible blue mussel
 Mytilus edulis platensis d'Orbigny, 1846 = Mytilus chilensis (Hupé, 1854) – Chilean mussel (controversial)
 Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819  – Mediterranean mussel
 Mytilus trossulus Gould, 1850  – foolish mussel
 Mytilus californianus Conrad, 1837  – California mussel
 Mytilus coruscus Gould, 1861 

Human use
Mytilus mussels are widely used as food. In California they were eaten by coastal Native American people for almost 12,000 years.Erlandson, Jon M. et al 2008. Human impacts on ancient shellfish: a 10,000 year record from San Miguel Island, California. Journal of Archaeological Science. 35:2144-2152.

 References 


 McDonald J.H; Seed R. and Koehn R.K. 1991. Allozymes and morphometric characters of three species of Mytilus in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Marine Biology 111: 323-333.


Category:Bivalves