“Ode to a Mussel”

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon here in Martinez, California, my wife, daughter, and I were having brunch at a wonderful restaurant in nearby Crockett called The Dead Fish.

I ordered the mussels and shrimp, which were absolutely delicious, especially when dipped in the sauce provided. But I began to wonder about the mussel. What does it do? It can’t swim. It just sits there somewhere deep in the water. It doesn’t form a pearl like an oyster. What is its purpose?

Then I had another thought. How does it procreate? It would seem impossible for a male and female mussel to get together, since each of them is encased in a shell.

So when I got back home, I did some research. Here’s what I learned.

During the breeding season, the female mussel lays eggs and broods them inside specialized chambers in their gills called marsupia.  Males release sperm into the open water, which is then drawn into the females through their siphons. The sperm fertilizes the eggs.  Inside the female mussel, fertilized eggs develop into microscopic larvae known as glochidia.

Most mussels need to “infect” a host fish with glochidia to facilitate the glochidia metamorphosing into juveniles. Some mussels simply release glochidia into the water where they randomly may come into contact with the right fish host as it swims by. 

In other mussel species, the process is more direct. Females in the mussel genus Lampsilis have an extension of the mantle tissue that amazingly resembles a small fish.  The mussel displays this tissue outside its shell between the valves and twitches it repeatedly to attract a predaceous fish host—like a fishing lure. When the fish tries to eat the lure, it ruptures the marsupial gills of the female mussel, and the glochidia come loose and attach themselves to the fish. They must attach to the gills or the fins of the appropriate fish host. The tissue of the fish then grows over the glochidia.  Within days or weeks, depending on species and temperature, glochidia transform into microscopic juveniles and drop off.  If by chance they settle into suitable habitat, a new mussel bed is created.

The process is incredible. But once they are born, what do mussels do?

Mussels open their shells to pull in seawater. They strain out tiny bits of food like phytoplankton, algae, and small organic particles. A single mussel can filter up to 20 liters (about five gallons) of seawater every day. This process removes excess particles and improves water clarity.

Mussels use strong protein strings called byssus threads to anchor themselves tightly to rocks and to each other. Large groups of mussels form dense beds. Their shells provide habitat and nesting sites for insects, small fish, and plants.

Mussels are an important food source for sea stars, shorebirds, fish, and sea otters. They pass energy up the food chain from the microscopic things they eat to larger predators.

And eating mussels is good for you. They are packed with high-quality protein, vitamin B12, and omega-3 fatty acids. A 100-gram serving gives you about 24 grams of protein to help build and fix your muscles. They have more than 400 percent of your daily need for vitamin B12, which keeps your blood and nerves healthy. They contain omega-3 fatty acids that are good for your heart and brain. They are rich in iron, zinc, and selenium, which help your immune system and energy levels.

Why am I telling you so much about the mussel?

The article that furnished me with the information on how mussels procreate concluded with this sentence: “It’s an astonishing display of evolutionary adaptation, going on just under the surface of local streams around the globe.”

I would like amend that statement: It’s an astonishing display of God’s creativity. I started with a simple question: how do mussels procreate? It seemed to me an impossibility. But, as the Bible tells us, with God all things are possible. 

As John Calvin put it, the world that we live in is a theater of God’s glory. As God said to Job, “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? (Job 39:1-3).

The psalmist writes, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great” (Psalm 104:24-25).

That includes the tiny mussel.

Let me close with a funny story. My wife and I were on vacation in England. We came to Dartmouth, a lovely fishing village in Devon, and found a nice little restaurant with a view of the harbor. On the menu was an item called “large mussels.” I thought, Wow, I wonder how large they are? When they arrived, they were the normal size. But there was a bucketful of them. That’s when I realized that “large” meant quantity, not size.

I still enjoyed them immensely.

This article first appeared in Faith on View;  https://share.google/bbtSVUmoBkUcZMa5N