Venus (genus)

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Venus clam

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Bivalvia
Subclass:	Pteriomorphia
Order:	Veneroida
Family:	Veneridae
Genus:	Venus Linnaeus, 1758

Species

See text.

Venus is a genus of marine bivalve molluscs, a group of clams in the family Veneridae, a family which are sometimes known as Venus clams, and which are named after the Roman goddess of love.

Species currently classified in the genus Venus are also commonly referred to as Venuses or Venus clams. However because of reclassifications, there are some bivalves commonly called Venus clams that used to also have the Latin name Venus, but now are no longer placed in that genus.

For example, the species in the genus Mercenaria were also formerly classified under Venus. There are a number of species that still have the word venus as part of their common name, but which are no longer in the genus Venus. A few of these are as follows: the sunray venus, Macrocallista nimbosa, (Lightfoot), cross barred venus, Chione cancellata, (Linnaeus), lady in waiting venus, Chione intapurpurea, (Conrad), imperial venus, Chione latilirata, (Conrad), and gray pygmy venus, Chione grus, (Holmes).

The family Veneridae contains over four hundred known species. Of the bivalves, they are some of the most colorful. Species vary in shape from circular to triangular. Characteristically venus clams possess a porcelain-like shell, a complex tooth structure in the hinge, well developed escutchion and lunule and a well developed pallial sinus.

Veneridae colonize the sandy ocean bottom, and their populations are often dense and large. The Veneroida order typically have a folded gill structure which is well developed for filtering out small food particles.

[edit] Species

Venus affinis (Sowerby, 1855)
Venus albina (Sowerby, 1853)
Venus casina (Linnaeus, 1758) Europe [taxonomy not verified]
Venus cassinaeformis (Yokoyama, 1926)
Venus chevreuxi (Dautzenberg, 1891)
Venus corbis (J. B. Lamarck, 1818)
Venus crenulata (Schröter, 1788)
Venus declivis (Sowerby, 1853)
Venus elegans (Gray, 1828)
Banded venus, Venus fasciata (da Costa, 1778)
Venus foveolata (Sowerby, 1853)
Striped venus, Venus gallina (Linnaeus, 1758)
Venus lamellaris (Schumacher, 1817)

Venus affinis (Sowerby, 1855)

Warty Venus, Venus verrucosa (Linnaeus, 1758)
Venus lamellata (Lamarck, 1818)
Venus lubuana (Adams and Reeve, 1850)
Venus (Gemma) manhattensis (Prime, 1862): 482-483, text fig. (syntype, missing).
Venus materna (T. Iredale, 1929)
Venus mindoroensis (Smith, 1916)
Venus nux (Gmelin, 1791) [taxonomy not verified]
Oval venus, Venus ovata (Pennant, 1777)
Venus persimilis (T. Iredale, 1930)
Venus punctigera (Dautzenberg)
Venus resticulata (Sowerby, 1853)
Venus rosalina (Rang, 1802)
Venus thomassini (Fischer and Vukadinovi, 1977)
Venus toreuma (Gould, 1851)
Venus undata (Pennant, 1777)
Venus verdensis (Dautz and Fischer, 1906)
Warty venus, Venus verrucosa (Linnaeus, 1758)
Venus verrucosa simulans (Sowerby, 1844)