Filtering, feeding, and digestion in the lamellibranch Lasaea rubra

Abstract

Lasaea rubra is the smallest and commonest of Plymouth bivalves. It is intertidal on rocky shores, often in immense numbers, in crevices and other protected places, and in Pygmaea pumila (Colman, 1940). This bivalve is an excellent laboratory animal. It remains fully active for several days under laboratory conditions, and a large number of animals can be used in a single experiment, eliminating the variations in activity found when dealing with a few, or single specimens of larger animals. Because of the relatively high position Lasaea rubra may occupy on the shore its feeding cycle is broken by regular dry periods at each tide. Thus, for experiments relating to periodicity in feeding, we have an animal whose times of feeding can easily be ascertained and experimentally varied over a wide range. Lastly, in making serial sections and in examining total gut contents, in work on the digestive system, the small size of the animal is of obvious advantage.