Pisidium casertanum

Pisidium casertanum, the pea cockle or pea clam, is a minute freshwater bivalve mollusc of the family Sphaeriidae.

Pisidium casertanum
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Bivalvia
Order:	Sphaeriida
Superfamily:	Sphaerioidea
Family:	Sphaeriidae
Genus:	Pisidium
Species:	P. casertanum
Binomial name
Pisidium casertanum (Poli, 1791)
Synonyms
Cardium casertanum Poli, 1791 Pisidium novaezelandiae Prime, 1862 Corneocyclas aucklandica Suter, 1907

Description

The shell is broad, sub-triangular or oval and is ornamented with sculpture of faint concentric striations. The umbos are slightly behind the middle. The Periostracum is silky, scarcely glossy. In colour it is whitish to grey-brown and often the shell is coated with reddish-brown deposits.

The shell is of similar shape to Sphaerium novaezelandiae but is smaller as an adult, more inflated, with a deeper hinge-plate, stronger teeth, and the ligament is not visible externally.

Length is up to 4.5 mm, height 3.7 mm, and thickness 2.3 mm.

Pisidium casertanum Presence in European countries

Distribution

It has a cosmopolitan distribution and is perhaps the world's widely distributed non-marine mollusc.

• British Isles - common^[1]
• Ireland^[2]
• Czech Republic - in Bohemia, in Moravia,^[3] least concern (LC)^[4]
• Slovakia^[3]
• Germany - distributed in whole Germany. High endangered (Stark gefährdet) in Hesse, critically endangered (vom Aussterben bedroht) in Saxony. Pisidium casertanum ponderosum endangered (gefährdet) in Brandenburg.^[5]
• Latvia
• Netherlands^[6]
• New Zealand - common^[7]
• Nordic countries: Denmark, Faroes, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden^[8]
• Poland