The last dissection I will present you (because we didn't do more than those) is the dissection of a blue mussel (Mytilus edulis). Have you ever wondered what's in one of those animals that one eats dozens of everytime you have them for dinner? Wonder no longer!
What can you see here?
The pinkish flesh at the top is the "coat" that has been lifted up. There are two parts to it, one on the left and one on the right. In this picture, the mussel is "looking" to the left and "lying" on its right side! The side where it opens is not the mouth but technically the stomach!
Lying on the coat, not really visible in this picture, are the gills. Embedded into the coat are the gonoducts (reproduction tract)
Right below the "coat", you can see two white, thick strings. Those are the muscles that control the byssus (not visible here but we will talk about this later). The flesh-colored thing that slightly hangs out of the mussel right under the muscles is the mussel's foot.
There is a lot more stuff you can't really distinguish well because of the bad picture, but it's mostly muscles or reproduction/digestion related. Delicious!
What you see here is, in fact, a female mussel! You can see that by the color of the coat, it's slightly pinkish. The male one is slightly lighter, pictured below:
Overall, the dissection here wasn't as good as the female, but you can see the foot (hanging out at the bottom) and the gills a lot better! What's also visible here are the byssus threads, that's the grass-like stuff on the byssus. A living mussel uses those to hold onto things.
While mussels make a great meal (I can't stomach any after doing the dissection), they also serve an important ecological purpose. They filter and clean water, which allows a greater variety of other animals to live in it. WIthout mussels, our water would be very, very dirty. Just imagine how many animals poop and pee in there on a daily basis!
Or ... no. Don't imagine that. Ew.
Of course, it's not just the blue mussel who filters liters over liters of water each day, every day, other clams do these too. But as the water temperature rises and heavy metals (and other toxic substances) accumulate in the oceans, mussels have similar problems to all other aquatic animals.
We need to remember that they're not just food but an integral part of our ecosystem.
Sorry, one more time, for the short post. I've been sick, still am a bit, and basically only exist between the lab and my bed. I hope you enjoyed this small piece of information about mussels anyway!
Pictures were taken by me, except for the first one ("Graphic Content Warning"), that was made by
