Located where the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea converge, the Florida Keys are distinctive for their rich and varied marine fauna. The Keys are home to nearly sixty taxonomic families of bivalves such as clams and mussels--roughly half the world's bivalve family diversity. The first in a series of three volumes on the molluscan fauna of the Keys and adjacent regions, Seashells of Southern Florida: Bivalves provides a comprehensive treatment of these bivalves, and also serves as a comparative anatomical guide to bivalve diversity worldwide.

Paula Mikkelsen and Rudiger Bieler cover more than three hundred species of bivalves, including clams, scallops, oysters, mussels, shipworms, jewel boxes, tellins, and many lesser-known groups. For each family they select an exemplar species and illustrate its shell and anatomical features in detail. They describe habitat and other relevant information, and accompany each species account with high-resolution shell photographs of other family members. Text and images combine to present species--to family-level characteristics in a complete way never before seen. The book includes fifteen hundred mostly color photographs and images of shells, underwater habitats, bivalves in situ, original anatomical and hinge drawings, scanning electron micrographs, and unique transparent--shell illustrations with major organ systems color-coded and clearly shown. Seashells of Southern Florida: Bivalves is the most complete guide to subtropical bivalves available. It is an essential tool for students and teachers of molluscan diversity and systematics, and an indispensable identification guide for collectors, scuba divers, naturalists, environmental consultants, and natural-resource managers.

This book provides the most thorough treatment of living mollusks in this region ever written. It provides anatomical details of many species for which the anatomy had not been described previously. In addition to serving as an identification guide, it focuses on mollusks as living organisms, providing more biological information than previous faunal guides for western Atlantic marine mollusks.

A tremendous resource for zoologists, ecologists, and any researchers in tropical marine systems. This book describes and illustrates in great detail the incredibly diverse bivalve mollusk fauna of the Florida Keys. The lushness of the color illustrations and photographs will encourage even reticent readers to delve deeper into the text. This work is significant and important.

This handsome volume, the first of a projected three-volume work on the mollusks of the Florida Keys, sets an admirable precedent. Mikkelsen and Rudiger have probably created the best illustrated and most detailed of any marine identification work so far published...[T]his is an important reference work that belongs in the library of any institution that offers courses in marine biology.

Paula M. Mikkelsen is a marine biologist and director of publications at the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, New York. Rudiger Bieler is an evolutionary biologist and curator of invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. They are the coauthors of "Pearls: A Natural History".

Preface

Introduction 1

Florida Keys 1

Natural History 1

Need for Protection 2

Florida Keys Bivalves 3

Habitats 3

History of Exploration and the Florida Keys Molluscan Diversity Project 5

Using This Book 6

Bivalve Morphology 11

Recent Bivalve Families of the World 18

The Florida Keys Bivalves 24

Nuculidae 24

Solemyidae 30

Manzanellidae 35

Nuculanidae 38

Yoldiidae 44

Arcidae 48

Noetiidae 58

Glycymerididae 62

Limopsidae 68

Philobryidae 74

Mytilidae 78

Pteriidae 92

Isognomonidae 98

Malleidae 104

Ostreidae 108

Gryphaeidae 114

Pinnidae 120

Limidae 126

Pectinidae 134

Propeamussiidae 148

Spondylidae 154

Plicatulidae 158

Anomiidae 162

Crassatellidae 166

Astartidae 172

Carditidae 176

Condylocardiidae 182

Pandoridae 186

Lyonsiidae 192

Periplomatidae 196

Spheniopsidae 200

Thraciidae 204

Verticordiidae 208

Poromyidae 214

Cuspidariidae 220

Lucinidae 228

Ungulinidae 240

Thyasiridae 246

Chamidae 250

Lasaeidae 258

Hiatellidae 264

Gastrochaenidae 268

Trapezidae 274

Sportellidae 279

Corbiculidae 284

Cardiidae 288

Veneridae 300

Tellinidae 322

Donacidae 340

Psammobiidae 344

Semelidae 350

Solecurtidae 358

Pharidae 364

Mactridae 368

Dreissenidae 374

Myidae 378

Corbulidae 382

Pholadidae 388

Teredinidae 396

Acknowledgments 409

A Note About Shell Collecting 411

A Note on Species Names Introduced by d'Orbigny 413

Illustrated Glossary of Bivalve Terms 415

General Literature Cited and Suggested Reading 449

Image Data and Credits 455

Index 481