Mucus bound masses with indigestable material suspended in it created by bivalves
Pseudofeces of zebra mussel, photographed in the Deûle river (North of France).
Pseudofeces or pseudofaeces[1] are a specialized method of expulsion that filter-feeding bivalve mollusks (and filter-feeding gastropod mollusks) use in order to get rid of suspended particles such as particles of grit which cannot be used as food, and which have been rejected by the animal. The rejected particles are wrapped in mucus, and are then expelled without having passed through the digestive tract.[2] Thus, although they may closely resemble the mollusk's real feces, they are not actually feces, hence the name pseudofeces, meaning false feces.
^See spelling differences
^Shimek, Ronald L. Phytoplankton, A Necessity For Clams
cavity as a mucus-bound mass. These mucus-bound masses are the pseudofeces. Pseudofeces accumulate with, and look much like, the actual feces in the bottom...
veligers. Any undesirable particulate matter is bound with mucus, known as pseudofeces, and ejected out the incurrent siphon. The particle-free water is then...
to the mouth, where they are eaten, digested and expelled as feces or pseudofeces. Each oyster filters up to five litres of water per hour. Scientists...
the mouth, where they are eaten, digested, and expelled as feces or pseudofeces that fall to the bottom and remain out of the water column. Oysters feed...
combined with mucus and other matter and deposited on lake floors as pseudofeces. Since the zebra mussel has become established in Lake Erie, water clarity...
processes. Grazing on pelagic organic matter and biodeposition of feces and pseudofeces by suspension-feeding fauna increases organic matter sedimentation rates...
the gut, and the undigested remains egested as feces, or discarded as pseudofeces, is expelled through the exhalant siphon. These water currents are also...
grow. For example, mussels contribute bioavailable nitrogen in their pseudofeces. When ribbed mussels form mussel mounds, they are able to stabilize the...
mudflats, and biologically interact with oyster beds in a few ways: The pseudofeces and feces of bivalves have been found to fertilize seagrass by increasing...
(mollusc) circulatory system of gastropods excretory system of gastropods pseudofeces reproductive system of gastropods apophallation Love dart number of other...
deep sediments and egests them on the sediment surface in the form of pseudofeces. The activities of this worm can alter sediment stratification, increase...
virgin sediment but the clams have also been observed to consume their pseudofeces and feces. It is assumed that the siphon tip is unselective in the particles...
silt and other unwanted water-borne particules by expelling these as pseudofeces. Commensal symbionts such as crustaceans and a cardinal fish, Astrapogon...
silt and other unwanted water-borne particules by expelling these as pseudofeces. The amber pen shell may reach 30 cm (12 in) in length with shell growth...
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