BIVALVIA Linnaeus, 1758

Class BIVALVIA Linnaeus, 1758 View in CoL

All the bivalve shells reported on here show evidence of pigmentation at the muscle scars. Hao et al. (2015) identified the pigment in the muscle scar of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas as eumelanin and proposed that as melanin is elsewhere related to mechanical strength, its presence is related to increasing the strength and ability of the muscles to hold the shell closed when attacked by predators. However, melanin cannot be responsible for the pigmentation seen in the muscle scars here as melanin is not known to fluoresce ( Williams, 2017).