### seafood | shellfish | cephalopod:

Colleoid cephalopod
* have complex organs which they use to change colour rapidly.
+ Chromatophore, Cephalopod chromatophores: Ecology :: Physiology
  * Colleoid cephalopods have complex organs which they use to change colour rapidly. This is seen in squid, cuttlefish and octopuses. Each chromatophore unit is a single chromatophore cell and muscle, nerve, glial and sheath cells. Inside the chromatophore cell, pigment granules are in an elastic sac. To change colour the animal changes the sac form or size by muscular contraction. This changes its appearance.

Chiton
* are herbivores.
* respire through gills located in two lateral grooves between the foot and the shells.
* tend to be nocturnal creatures, venturing out when the light is dim in search of food.

### seafood | shellfish:

Cockle
* are a bi-valve mollusc
  - popular type of edible shellfish in both Eastern and Western cooking
  - street food in Cambodia
  - also a very popular target for recreational clam diggers
  - an effective bait for a wide variety of sea fishes
  - at their best in winter and are usually sold cooked, with or without their shells
  - bivalves
  - capable of 'jumping' by bending and straightening the foot
  - clams with rounded ribs and clear growth rings
  - favoured by oystercatchers and sand flounder, and by people
  - shellfishs
* burrow using the foot, and feed by filtering plankton from the surrounding water.
* can use their foot to leap from danger.
* comes from the Irish word 'cochall' which in fact means the membrane of the heart.
* have much sand sticking to their shells before storms
  - the highest growth rates from subtidal areas with plenty of food
* live in dense bed in many coastal estuaries.
  * are capable of 'jumping' by bending and straightening the foot. Cockles burrow using the foot, and feed by filtering plankton from the surrounding water.
+ Bivalve, Movement, Swimming
  * Scallops, and file clams can swim to escape a predator, clapping their valves together to create a jet of water. Cockles can use their foot to leap from danger. However these methods quickly exhaust the animal. In the razor shells the siphons can break off only to grow back later.

### seafood | shellfish | crabmeat:

Blue crab
* Most blue crabs begin life
  - compete for resources
  - eat diets
* Most blue crabs go into salinity water
* Most blue crabs have hard shells
  - legs
* Some blue crabs belong to families
  - eat crabs
  - feed on bivalves
  - have ability
* Some blue crabs live along atlantic coasts
* are a major Virginia seafood product
  - commercially fishedin Weeks Bay
  - eaten by octopus, fish, gulls, herons, and humans
  - good swimmers with the last pair of legs modified into paddles at the end
  - highly mobile, but are more active during daylight hours than in the evenings
  - host to external and internal barnacles
  - invertebrates meaning they lack a spinal column
  - part of blue crabs
  - sexually dimorphic, meaning sexes occur in distinct forms
  - the preferred food in many areas
* belong to the family of swimming crabs that also includes the lady crab.
* eat a wide variety of plants and animals
* feed in three different ways
  - on both plants and animals
* have a hard shell or exoskeleton
  - place of importance in the ecosystem
  - large, flat, paddle-shaped rear legs for swimming
  - ten legs with the back two modified into paddle shaped swimming legs
* have three pairs of legs and walk sideways
  - walking legs and paddle-shaped rear swimming legs
* is crabmeat
  - sold in both hardshell and softshell forms
* live throughout the Bay.
* molt every few weeks when they are young, but only once a year when they are older.
* spend a portion of their lives in brackish-water areas of the Mississippi Sound.