Yes- scallops have lived before they make it to your dinner plate-and WHAT a life! First of all, what is a scallop? It is a marine bivalve mollusk. Bivalve means it has two valves or shells. There is an upper and a lower shell. The top shell has a pink tone and the lower shell is lighter. The animal lives between the shells. The scallop creates the shell from the mantle, a sheet of tissue between the shells and the animal inside. The part of the scallop that we eat is in the center of the shell and is called the adductor muscle. There are two parts to the muscle. The larger part is what moves the scallop along- the "clapping" of the two shells together allow the scallop to evade predators (like us!). They "squirt" water like an octopus, jetting away from danger. The smaller part of the muscle is the "lock" that keeps the shells closed, keeping out predators. Scallops also have sets of blue "eyes" located along the mantle. These can sense changes in light and motion. Scallops also have a heart, stomach, gills, and an anus (rectum). See a diagram of it at
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/
There is a great article on the Blue-Eyed Scallop writing by Bill Amos. Instead of rewriting his information, I'm going to direct you to his article, The Blue-Eyed Scallop via this website:
http://www.caledonianrecord.com/pages/hi...
The photo above is one he took of a blue-eyed scallop.
Scallops spend most of their life deep in the ocean on the sea floor, and are most often found on the Atlantic coast from cape Cod to Texas. These scallops get to be about 2 inches (5cm) long. The giant scallop is found in the deeper waters from Labrador to New Jersey, and can get to 5 inches (12.7 cm) long. When a scallop is ready to reproduce, it closes its mantle edges together except for one side. It forms a little spout, and out of that spout it ejects sperm or eggs. Scallops are both male and female. If there is already sperm in the water near it, a scallop may eject eggs instead. The sperm and eggs mix in the water and the eggs are fertilized. Small scallops begin to develop from the eggs and float in the water carried by the current until they become larger and heavier, dropping to the ocean floor. As they grow, they are building that outer protective shell and become adults, starting the process over again.
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