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The hard clam (''Mercenaria mercenaria''), also known as a quahog (or quahaug), round clam, or hard-shell (or hard-shelled) clam, is an edible marine bivalve mollusk that is native to the eastern shores of North America and Central America, from Prince Edward Island to the Yucatán Peninsula. It is one of many unrelated edible bivalves that in the United States are frequently referred to simply as clams, as in the expression "clam digging". Older literature sources may use the systematic name ''Venus mercenaria''; this species is in the family Veneridae, the venus clams. Confusingly, the "ocean quahog" is a different species, ''Arctica islandica'', which, although superficially similar in shape, is in a different family of bivalves: it is rounder than the hard clam, usually has black periostracum, and there is no pallial sinus in the interior of the shell. ==Alternative names== The hard clam has many alternative common names. It is also known as the Northern quahog, round clam, or chowder clam.〔Harte, M. E. 2001. "Systematics and taxonomy, Chapter 1," pp. 3-51, in Kraeuter, J. N. and M. Castagna (eds.) "Biology of the Hard Clam", ''Developments in Aquaculture and Fisheries Science'', Vol. 31. Elsevier Science B. V. : New York.〕 In fish markets there are specialist names for different sizes of this species of clam. The smallest legally harvestable clams are called countnecks, next size up are littlenecks, then topnecks. Above that are the cherrystones, and the largest are called quahogs or chowder clams.〔Rice, M.A. (1992). The Northern Quahog: Biology of ''Mercenaria mercenaria''. Rhode Island Sea Grant Publication No. RIU-B-92-001, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett. 60 pp. ISBN 0-938412-33-7 (web link ).〕 Of all these names, the most distinctive is ''quahog'' ( , , or ). This name comes from the Narragansett word "poquauhock" – the word is similar in Wampanoag and some other Algonquian languages – and is first attested in North American English in 1794.〔"Quahaug, quahog", in ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', 3rd ed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)〕〔Roger Williams, A Key Into the Language of America. London: Gregory Dexter, 1643.〕 As New England Indians made valuable beads called wampum from the shells, especially those colored purple, the species name ''mercenaria'' is related to the Latin word for commerce. Today people living in coastal New England still use the Native American word for the clam as they have done for hundreds of years. In many areas where aquaculture is important, clam farmers have bred specialized versions of these clams with distinctions needed for them to be distinguished in the marketplace. These are quite similar to common 'wild type' ''Mercenaria'' clams, except that their shells bear distinctive markings; for example those from Wellfleet, Massachusetts and elsewhere have pronounced wavy or zigzag chestnut-colored lines on their shells, reminiscent of a line of W's running across the shell. These are known as the ''notata'' strain of quahogs, which occur naturally in low numbers wherever quahogs are found.〔Eldridge, P.J., W. Waltz, and H. Mills. 1975. Relative abundance of ''Mercenaria mercenaria notata'' in estuaries of South Carolina. Veliger 18:396-397.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hard clam」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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