Bathymodiolus

Illustration of a deep-sea mussel ( Bathymodiolus sp. )

Bathymodiolus is the scientific name for a genus of deep-sea mussels. There are two bivalve mollusks from the family of mussels ( Mytilidae ), the there to the subfamily of deep-sea mussels ( Bathymodiolinae ) are provided. One characteristic of this genus are intracellular bacterial chemoautotrophic symbionts.

Description and occurrence

The current name of the genus comes with the description of Bathymodiolus thermophilus Kenk and back to Wilson ( 1985). By 2010, a total of 22 species have been described. Bathymodiolus species reach a length of up to 30 cm and come in methane sources and black smokers in water depths of 630-3500 meters in front, where they can form extensive mussel beds. Living in the gills of the deep-sea mussels sulfur or methane bacteria feed on methane and hydrogen sulfide, which is taken up from the seawater.

Representative

Recent representatives are, inter alia:

• Bathymodiolus thermophilus ( Kenk & Wilson, 1985)
• Bathymodiolus aduloides ( Hashimoto & Okutani, 1994)
• Bathymodiolus puteoserpentis ( Cosel, Métivier & Hashimoto, 1994)
• Bathymodiolus childressi ( Gustafson, Lutz, Turner & Vrijenhoek, 1998)

More recently, fossil representatives have been described, such as:

• Bathymodiolus palmarensis (Kiel, Campbell & Gaillard, 2010)

Pictures

Bathymodiolus childressi

Bathymodiolus brooksi

Living environment of the genus Bathymodiolus in the deep sea