Hitchhiking Mussels

My life has been punctuated by singular moments of transcendence when I’ve witnessed phenomena rare and wonderful. The time I first watched spotted salamanders breeding for example, or my first encounter with showy-ladies slipper orchids in Caledon. I was hot, tired and mosquito bitten when I stumbled into a woodland opening to be greeted by those magnificent wildflowers. My discomforts were forgotten. 

My most recent experience with awe, courtesy of nature, was mussel watching. The uninitiated might consider mussels – along with other bivalves like clams – to be among the least charismatic of creatures. Perish the thought! 

Mussels use elaborate “lures” to trick smallmouth bass into giving their young a head start in life. Acting on a tip from a freshwater biologist, I found proof of this in the Thames River in late May. Staring intently at the stony river bottom I noticed something strange: fleshy fake fish “swimming” in the current. Clams called “lampmussels” were fishing for bass. 

Over millennia, lampmussels have evolved lures that resemble fish. They jerk these lures like human anglers do to attract the attention of predatory fish like bass.

Eventually a hungry bass will approach a mussel lure and close in for a strike, but it’s being tricked by one of the most convincing ruses in nature. When the bass chomps, the mussel spits out a cloud of its larvae. The tiny nascent mussels clamp onto the gills of the bass and settle down to nutritious meals of bass blood.  

These immature mussels ride their piscine transport up and down the stream – a great way to see the world and colonize new habitats. Then they fall off, drift down into the streambed and adopt a couch potato lifestyle for the remainder of their lives.

Finding these mussels rates as one of my peak nature experiences. I look forward to further awe-inspiring nature discoveries in the years to come.