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Allison Bolger, November 2000
A Zebra Mussel is a member of the Mollusk family. Most mollusks are covered with shells. They are wide and curved at one end, narrow and pointy at the other. They are usually one and a half inches long. They came from the Caspian Sea attached to the bottom of boats. They live in the Great Lakes and many other places.
Zebra mussels don't have a head, so they can't have a brain, so they don't communicate the way vertebrate animals do. They do communicate to each other by touch, and confuse other animals by the color of their shell.
Mussels move by crawling with their foot and use a byssus thread. They also move by floating along currents. Because they are narrow, they can move through small openings.
Zebra mussels are invertebrates. They are cold-blooded. They breathe by removing oxygen from the water. They have fleshy skin that oozes out a bony shell. They have two shells, two valves, two fleshy tubes called siphons, they have gills, a mouth, two muscles that hold the shell together, and a small cushion called the resilium, which is used to keep the shell slightly open. They reproduce by laying eggs.
Zebra mussels are an important part of the food chain. They eat tiny water plants and plankton. Gulls, diving ducks, crayfish, freshwater drum and yellow perch eat them. They try to defend themselves by closing their shell, camouflage, being very small and living in a massive group.
Here are some interesting facts about Zebra mussels:
