From a pier on a pier I saw, at low tide, these mussels sucked in .
Rows of them hung there waiting for the tide to turn....
Mussels are (bivalve) mollusks. They live mainly from plankton. They filter plankton out of the water. It does this as follows: First, a mussel opens its shell to initiate a flow of water. The water is sucked in through an inflow opening and leaves the body again through the outflow opening. During that flow, the water passes by the mussel's gills. Those gills are covered with innumerable cilia. Once the food particles hit the gills, they are absorbed into mucus. Then the food particles are moved by the cilia to the mouth. There, edible particles are sorted through two mouth flaps. Indigestible particles are discarded.
Source: Willem Wever
"Too much beauty to just walk by. There is so much to see .... and that is why we always take the camera along to capture it."
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