Question about mussels(shellfish)....

Question

My boyfriend's dad found a big mussel at the pond at a local park. That got me wondering....it's a public park with a manmade pond. How would mussels get in there? They stocked it with fish and the turtles and snakes would naturally migrate there. How would any sort of shellfish get there? Do you think the city would stock the pond with mussels? If so, that's a weird thing to put in there.

Answer 1

It's very likely that when they stock the pond with fish, the mussel larvae get carried along for the ride.  Obviously the fish are being reared in a hatchery in water and that water is coming from some place, likely a stream that has your mussel species in it.

The mussels in the water where the fish hatchery is likely spawned (released sperm and egg), creating zygotes that developed into tiny mussel larvae (called veligers).  The veligers float around and when they take fish out for stocking, some of the veligers tag along and get trasnported to the pond.

It would be interesting to find out where the hatchery is and look for your same mussel species in those waters.

Answer 2

When mussel eggs are fertilized they become "glochidia."  The glochida attach themselves to a host fish and live briefly as parasites.  The mussels hitched a ride on the fish.  Some mussels even use lures to attract host fish.  The shiny-rayed pocketbook is a good example of this behavior.  Here is a link that explains it all.

http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/Center_Public...

Answer 3

When born mussels are small, soft larvae, and they spend between weeks and months drifting around at the top of the body of water they happen to be in.  As there are vast numbers of them, the chances of one landing up in the gut or in mud on the foot of a seagull, a duck or some other bird are fairly high.  That same bird might happen to frequent your park.  The small, soft mussel could then get washed off the foot or ejected out through the rear entrance of the bird with other unwanted rubbish.

These shellfish don't start off their lives with shells.