The shell is thick and can grow up to 3 or 4 cm in length. The shell is overall oblong in shape but highly irregular with no two specimens being alike. Dull white in colour with a yellow-brown periostracum that has a coarse texture. Two distinct ridges extend posteriorly from the beak on each valve. In juveniles, the ridges posses short spines that are often worn away in older specimens. The shell is sculptured with thick concentric ridges. The inside of the shell is white.This species is a suspension feeder, catching particles of food as it passes. The type of substratum selected by juveniles determines whether they become burrowers or nestlers. Those settling on hard rock will attach by thread-like hairs and become nestlers while juveniles settling on soft rock become burrowers. The adults are able to bore into rock by mechanical abrasion using the valves of the shell. The initial penetration of the rock by juveniles may involve chemical as well as mechanical means.

“Saxicava arctica, Linné, 1767. Plate 55, figs. 6, a.

 

Shell small, polymorphous, inequilateral, usually oblong, very rugose, thin, sometimes fragile, young specimens very often with posterior spinous ridges, white or light brown. Beaks approximate, slightly raised, tumid, tricarinate, 1 anterior and 2 posterior, incurved and acute. Anterior end much shorter, usually truncated or convex and very rapidly descending; posterior end frequently very long, truncated or convex; the basal margin broadly convex or more or less deeply sinuated. Epidermis thin, dull, brown. Sculpture consisting of very irregular, concentric, sharply raised, often anastomosing riblets, crowded in front, distant and rather lamellar posteriorly; 2 sharp ridges are descending on each valve from the umbones towards the posterior end, and in young specimens are usually ornamented with small tubular spines. Colour light brown or nearly white. Interior white, slightly shining, smooth. Hinge very narrow; right valve with an oblique small tooth below and just in front of the umbo, and a socket behind it; left valve with a small, conical, upturned tooth a little behind the beak. Ligament external, short, rather prominent. Adductor-scars unequal, the posterior larger. Pallial sinus shallow.

 

Dimensions extremely variable, the greatest length of shells I have seen being 17 mm.

 

Hab. – Throughout New Zealand, Chatham, Auckland, and Kermadec Islands.

 

The species is apparently distributed all over the globe, and is found from low-water mark to about 500 fathoms.

 

Fossil in the Pliocene.”

 

(Suter, 1913)

A very common benthic bivalve mollusk of arctic seas

Outside - calcareous white. Inside - white; Periostracum (gray, light brown to dark brown), as a rule, absent except regions close to siphons and shell edge

Arctic Ocean, Azores, Azores Exclusive Economic Zone, Belgian Exclusive Economic Zone, British Isles, Canadian Exclusive Economic Zone [Arctic part], Caribbean Sea, Chamcook, Cobscook Bay, Deer Island, Dutch Exclusive Economic Zone, European waters (ERMS scope), FAO fishing area 18, Goote Bank, Greek Exclusive Economic Zone, Gulf of Maine, Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Strait, Irish Exclusive economic Zone, Joes Point, Koksijde, Lepreau, L'Etang, Lorneville Harbour, Manicouagan, Mediterranean Sea, New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone, North Africa, North Sea, North West Atlantic, Puerto Rico, Saguenay Fjord, Saint Lawrence River, Sint-Idesbald, St. Lawrence Estuary, The Wolves, United Kingdom Exclusive Economic Zone, West Africa, West Coast of Norway , Western Passage, Wimereux, Zeebrugge

Hiatella arctica is recorded for the first time at the Belgian coast by Pelseneer (1881).

Arctic Seas to deep waters in West Indies; Arctic seas to deep water off Panama

Holotype for Saxicava hawaiensis Dall et al., 1938
Collection: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoology
Preparation: Dry
Locality: Oahu, Ft. Armstrong, Hawaii, United States, North Pacific Ocean
Microhabitat: Coral reef
Depth (m): 15 to 27

Known from the nearshore.

intertidal, bathyal, infralittoral and circalittoral of the Gulf and estuary

Known from seamounts and knolls

Depth range based on 1092 specimens in 1 taxon.
Water temperature and chemistry ranges based on 542 samples.

Environmental ranges
  Depth range (m): -3 - 549
  Temperature range (°C): -1.393 - 24.978
  Nitrate (umol/L): 0.211 - 22.556
  Salinity (PPS): 27.109 - 38.444
  Oxygen (ml/l): 4.476 - 8.585
  Phosphate (umol/l): 0.057 - 1.935
  Silicate (umol/l): 0.805 - 45.785

Graphical representation

Depth range (m): -3 - 549

Temperature range (°C): -1.393 - 24.978

Nitrate (umol/L): 0.211 - 22.556

Salinity (PPS): 27.109 - 38.444

Oxygen (ml/l): 4.476 - 8.585

Phosphate (umol/l): 0.057 - 1.935

Silicate (umol/l): 0.805 - 45.785
 
Note: this information has not been validated. Check this *note*. Your feedback is most welcome.

 This species attaches by thread-like hairs in holes, crevices or algal holdfasts. It often bores into soft rock and shells. Found on the lower shore and down to about 50 m in depth.

Epibenthic mainly. Use byssal threads for attachment to the substratum; Very eurybiotic. Litoral-sublitoral mainly; On rock, stones and gravel substrates. Sometimes on silty or sandy substrates. Juveniles could be abundant on algae; Widespread subtropic (tropic?) - arctic species. May be bipolar.

Filter feeders.

Development with long stage of pelagic larvae

Genomic DNA is available from 1 specimen with morphological vouchers housed at British Antarctic Survey

The following is a representative barcode sequence, the centroid of all available sequences for this species. 

 
There are 2 barcode sequences available from BOLD and GenBank.  Below is a sequence of the barcode region Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI or COX1) from a member of the species.  See the BOLD taxonomy browser for more complete information about this specimen and other sequences.
 

Download FASTA File

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 2
Species: 68
Species With Barcodes: 1