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In biology , a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name , English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism, which is often based in Latin . A common name is sometimes frequently used, but that is not always the case.

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42-440: Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve mollusc . The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna , spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the sea floor or riverbeds. Clams have two shells of equal size connected by two adductor muscles and have a powerful burrowing foot. They live in both freshwater and marine environments; in salt water they prefer to burrow down into

84-592: A New England clam bake . On the West Coast, they are an ingredient in making cioppino and local variants of ceviche . Clams are eaten more in the coastal regions of India, especially in the Konkan, Kerala , Bengal and coastal regions of Karnataka , Tamil Nadu regions. In Kerala , clams are used to make curries and fried with coconut. In the Malabar region it is known as "elambakka" and in middle kerala it

126-654: A siphon . Clams are shellfish that make up an important part of the web of life that keeps the seas functioning, both as filter feeders and as a food source for many different animals. Extant mammals that eat clams include both the Pacific and Atlantic species of walrus , all known subspecies of harbour seals in both the Atlantic and Pacific, most species of sea lions , including the California sea lion , bearded seals and even species of river otters that will consume

168-590: A few other common edible species, such as the soft-shell clam , Mya arenaria , and the ocean quahog, Arctica islandica . Another species commercially exploited on the Atlantic Coast of the United States is the surf clam, Spisula solidissima . Scallops are also used for food nationwide, but not cockles : they are more difficult to get than in Europe because of their habit of being further out in

210-420: A hinge with a flexible ligament and all are filter feeders . A clam's shell consists of two (usually equal) valves, which are connected by a hinge joint and a ligament that can be internal or external. The ligament provides tension to bring the valves apart, whilst one or two adductor muscles can contract to close the valves. Clams also have kidneys, a heart, a mouth, a stomach, and a nervous system. Many have

252-485: A particularly common name is used varies; some common names have a very local application, while others are virtually universal within a particular language. Some such names even apply across ranges of languages; the word for cat , for instance, is easily recognizable in most Germanic and many Romance languages . Many vernacular names, however, are restricted to a single country and colloquial names to local districts. Some languages also have more than one common name for

294-685: A slightly smaller cousin of the bamboo clam of eastern North America. These can be found for sale in open-air markets like Billingsgate Market in London; they have a similar taste to their North American cousin. Cockles, specifically the common cockle , are a staple find on beaches in western Wales and further north in the Dee Estuary . The accidentally introduced hard-shell quahog is also found in British waters, mainly those near England, and does see some use in British cuisine. The Palourde clam by far

336-535: A vernacular name describes one used in a lab, trade or industry that does not unambiguously describe a single chemical, such as copper sulfate , which may refer to either copper(I) sulfate or copper(II) sulfate. Sometimes common names are created by authorities on one particular subject, in an attempt to make it possible for members of the general public (including such interested parties as fishermen, farmers, etc.) to be able to refer to one particular species of organism without needing to be able to memorise or pronounce

378-490: Is a global system that attempts to denote particular organisms or taxa uniquely and definitively , on the assumption that such organisms or taxa are well-defined and generally also have well-defined interrelationships; accordingly the ICZN has formal rules for biological nomenclature and convenes periodic international meetings to further that purpose. The form of scientific names for organisms, called binomial nomenclature ,

420-599: Is called marvai in the local Tulu language . It is used to prepare many dishes like marvai sukka , marvai gassi , and marvai pundi . In Japan, clams are often an ingredient of mixed seafood dishes. They can also be made into hot pot , miso soup or tsukudani . The more commonly used varieties of clams in Japanese cooking are the Shijimi ( Corbicula japonica ), the Asari ( Venerupis philippinarum ) and

462-461: Is in these remarks from a book on marine fish: In scientific binomial nomenclature, names commonly are derived from classical or modern Latin or Greek or Latinised forms of vernacular words or coinages; such names generally are difficult for laymen to learn, remember, and pronounce and so, in such books as field guides, biologists commonly publish lists of coined common names. Many examples of such common names simply are attempts to translate

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504-612: Is known as "kakka". Clam curry made with coconut is a dish from Malabar especially in the Thalassery region. On the southwestern coast of India , also known as the Konkan region of Maharashtra , clams are used in curries and side dishes, like Tisaryachi Ekshipi, which is clams with one shell on. Beary Muslim households in the Mangalore region prepare a main dish with clams called Kowldo Pinde. In Udupi and Mangalore regions, it

546-459: Is superficially similar to the noun-adjective form of vernacular names or common names which were used by non-modern cultures. A collective name such as owl was made more precise by the addition of an adjective such as screech . Linnaeus himself published a flora of his homeland Sweden, Flora Svecica (1745), and in this, he recorded the Swedish common names, region by region, as well as

588-659: Is the Cape dikkop (or "gewone dikkop", not to mention the presumably much older Zulu name "umBangaqhwa"); Burhinus vermiculatus is the "water dikkop". The thick joints in question are not even, in fact, the birds' knees, but the intertarsal joints β€”in lay terms the ankles. Furthermore, not all species in the genus have "thick knees", so the thickness of the "knees" of some species is not of clearly descriptive significance. The family Burhinidae has members that have various common names even in English, including " stone curlews ", so

630-463: Is the case with say, ginkgo , okapi , and ratel . Folk taxonomy , which is a classification of objects using common names, has no formal rules and need not be consistent or logical in its assignment of names, so that say, not all flies are called flies (for example Braulidae , the so-called "bee lice") and not every animal called a fly is indeed a fly (such as dragonflies and mayflies ). In contrast, scientific or biological nomenclature

672-601: Is the most common native clam and it is both commercially harvested as well as locally collected, and Spisula solida , a relative of the Atlantic surf clam on the other side of the Atlantic, is seeing increased interest as a food source and aquaculture candidate; it is mainly found in the British Isles in Europe. In Italy, clams are often an ingredient of mixed seafood dishes or are eaten together with pasta. The more commonly used varieties of clams in Italian cooking are

714-893: The vongola ( Venerupis decussata ) , the cozza (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and the tellina ( Donax trunculus ) . Though dattero di mare (Lithophaga lithophaga) was once eaten, overfishing drove it to the verge of extinction (it takes 15 to 35 years to reach adult size and could only be harvested by smashing the calcarean rocks that form its habitat) and the Italian government has declared it an endangered species since 1998 and its harvest and sale are forbidden. In Islam, clams are halal to eat as per three Sunni sects , but not in Hanafi, as only fish are considered halal in Hanafi jurisprudence , not other aquatic animals. In Judaism, clams are treif , i.e. non-kosher. Some species of clam, particularly Mercenaria mercenaria , were in

756-756: The Chumash of California, the Nisqually of Washington state and the Tsawwassen of British Columbia . The butter clam, Saxidomus gigantea , the Pacific razor clam, Siliqua patula , gaper clams Tresus capax , the geoduck clam, Panopea generosa and the Pismo clam, Tivela stultorum are all eaten as delicacies. Clams can be eaten raw, steamed, boiled, baked or fried . They can also be made into clam chowder , clams casino , clam cakes , or stuffies , or they can be cooked using hot rocks and seaweed in

798-465: The Hamaguri ( Meretrix lusoria ). The rocky terrain and pebbly shores of the seacoast that surrounds the entire island provide ample habitat for shellfish, and clams are most definitely included in that description. The oddity here is that for a nation whose fortunes have been tied to the sea for hundreds of years, 70% of the seafood cultivated for aquaculture or commercial harvesting is exported to

840-624: The Hebrew Language publish from time to time short dictionaries of common name in Hebrew for species that occur in Israel or surrounding countries e.g. for Reptilia in 1938, Osteichthyes in 2012, and Odonata in 2015. Trachycardium muricatum Dallocardia muricata , the yellow prickly cockle , is a species of bivalve mollusc in the family Cardiidae . Atlantic coast of North America, ranging from North Carolina to

882-710: The SSAR switched to an online version with a searchable database. Standardized names for the amphibians and reptiles of Mexico in Spanish and English were first published in 1994, with a revised and updated list published in 2008. A set of guidelines for the creation of English names for birds was published in The Auk in 1978. It gave rise to Birds of the World: Recommended English Names and its Spanish and French companions. The Academy of

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924-534: The Secretariat for the AFNC. SSA is an accredited Standards Australia (Australia's peak non-government standards development organisation) Standards Development The Entomological Society of America maintains a database of official common names of insects, and proposals for new entries must be submitted and reviewed by a formal committee before being added to the listing. Efforts to standardize English names for

966-505: The amphibians and reptiles of North America (north of Mexico) began in the mid-1950s. The dynamic nature of taxonomy necessitates periodical updates and changes in the nomenclature of both scientific and common names. The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR) published an updated list in 1978, largely following the previous established examples, and subsequently published eight revised editions ending in 2017. More recently

1008-515: The author introduced into it so many new English names, that are to be found in no dictionary, and that do not preclude the necessity of learning with what Latin names they are synonymous. A tolerable idea may be given of the danger of too great a multiplicity of vulgar names, by imagining what geography would be, or, for instance, the Post-office administration, supposing every town had a totally different name in every language. Various bodies and

1050-493: The authors of many technical and semi-technical books do not simply adapt existing common names for various organisms; they try to coin (and put into common use) comprehensive, useful, authoritative, and standardised lists of new names. The purpose typically is: Other attempts to reconcile differences between widely separated regions, traditions, and languages, by arbitrarily imposing nomenclature, often reflect narrow perspectives and have unfortunate outcomes. For example, members of

1092-401: The catch than a generation ago, and there is a prevalence of YouTube videos of locavore scavenging. Shellfish have provided a staple of the British diet since the earliest occupations of the British Isles, as evidenced by the large numbers of remains found in midden mounds near occupied sites. Staple favourites of the British public and local scavengers include the razorfish, Ensis siliqua ,

1134-408: The choice of the name "thick-knees" is not easy to defend but is a clear illustration of the hazards of the facile coinage of terminology. For collective nouns for various subjects, see a list of collective nouns (e.g. a flock of sheep, pack of wolves). Some organizations have created official lists of common names, or guidelines for creating common names, hoping to standardize

1176-526: The continent. Historically, Britain has been an island most famous for its passion for beef and dairy products, although there is evidence going back to before most recorded history of coastal shell middens near Weymouth and present day York. (There is also evidence of more thriving local trade in sea products in general by noting the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers was founded in 1272 in London.) Present-day younger populations are eating more of

1218-636: The freshwater species found in Asia and North America. Birds of all kinds will also eat clams if they can catch them in the littoral zone : roseate spoonbills of North and South America, the Eurasian oystercatcher , whooping crane and common crane , the American flamingo of Florida and the Caribbean Sea, and the common sandpiper are just a handful of the numerous birds that feast on clams all over

1260-522: The genus Burhinus occur in Australia, Southern Africa, Eurasia, and South America. A recent trend in field manuals and bird lists is to use the name " thick-knee " for members of the genus. This, in spite of the fact that the majority of the species occur in non-English-speaking regions and have various common names, not always English. For example, "Dikkop" is the centuries-old South African vernacular name for their two local species: Burhinus capensis

1302-711: The modern (now binding) International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants contains the following: Art. 68. Every friend of science ought to be opposed to the introduction into a modern language of names of plants that are not already there unless they are derived from a Latin botanical name that has undergone but a slight alteration. ... ought the fabrication of names termed vulgar names, totally different from Latin ones, to be proscribed. The public to whom they are addressed derives no advantage from them because they are novelties. Lindley's work, The Vegetable Kingdom, would have been better relished in England had not

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1344-825: The mud and the turbidity of the water required varies with species and location; the greatest diversity of these is in North America . Clams in the culinary sense do not live attached to a substrate (whereas oysters and mussels do) and do not live near the bottom (whereas scallops do). In culinary usage, clams are commonly eaten marine bivalves, as in clam digging and the resulting soup, clam chowder . Many edible clams such as palourde clams are ovoid or triangular; however razor clams have an elongated parallel-sided shell, suggesting an old-fashioned straight razor. Some clams have life cycles of only one year, whilst at least one has been aged to more than 500 years. All clams have two calcareous shells or valves joined near

1386-487: The past used by the Algonquians of Eastern North America to manufacture wampum , a type of sacred jewellery ; and to make shell money . Edible: Not usually considered edible: Common name In chemistry , IUPAC defines a common name as one that, although it unambiguously defines a chemical, does not follow the current systematic naming convention, such as acetone , systematically 2-propanone , while

1428-488: The same animal. For example, in Irish, there are many terms that are considered outdated but still well-known for their somewhat humorous and poetic descriptions of animals. w/ literal translations of the poetic terms Common names are used in the writings of both professionals and laymen . Lay people sometimes object to the use of scientific names over common names, but the use of scientific names can be defended, as it

1470-443: The sand very close to the beach, it cannot be harvested by mechanical means without damaging the beaches. The bamboo clam is also notorious for having a very sharp edge of its shell, and when harvested by hand must be handled with great care. On the U.S. West Coast, there are several species that have been consumed for thousands of years, evidenced by middens full of clamshells near the shore and their consumption by nations including

1512-402: The scientific name into English or some other vernacular. Such translation may be confusing in itself, or confusingly inaccurate, for example, gratiosus does not mean "gracile" and gracilis does not mean "graceful". The practice of coining common names has long been discouraged; de Candolle's Laws of Botanical Nomenclature , 1868, the non-binding recommendations that form the basis of

1554-555: The scientific name. Creating an "official" list of common names can also be an attempt to standardize the use of common names, which can sometimes vary a great deal between one part of a country and another, as well as between one country and another country, even where the same language is spoken in both places. A common name intrinsically plays a part in a classification of objects, typically an incomplete and informal classification, in which some names are degenerate examples in that they are unique and lack reference to any other name, as

1596-579: The scientific names. The Swedish common names were all binomials (e.g. plant no. 84 RΓ₯g-losta and plant no. 85 Ren-losta); the vernacular binomial system thus preceded his scientific binomial system. Linnaean authority William T. Stearn said: By the introduction of his binomial system of nomenclature, Linnaeus gave plants and animals an essentially Latin nomenclature like vernacular nomenclature in style but linked to published, and hence relatively stable and verifiable, scientific concepts and thus suitable for international use. The geographic range over which

1638-608: The strawberry cockle; and Dinocardium robustum , which grows to be many times the size of the European cockle. Historically, they were caught on a small scale on the Outer Banks , barrier islands off North Carolina, and put in soups, steamed or pickled. Up and down the coast of the Eastern U.S., the bamboo clam , Ensis directus , is prized by Americans for making clam strips , although because of its nature of burrowing into

1680-554: The tide than European species on the West Coast, and on the East Coast they are often found in salt marshes and mudflats where mosquitoes are abundant. There are several edible species in the Eastern United States: Americardia media , also known as the strawberry cockle, is found from Cape Hatteras down into the Caribbean Sea and all of Florida; Trachycardium muricatum has a similar range to

1722-832: The use of common names. For example, the Australian Fish Names List or AFNS was compiled through a process involving work by taxonomic and seafood industry experts, drafted using the CAAB (Codes for Australian Aquatic Biota) taxon management system of the CSIRO , and including input through public and industry consultations by the Australian Fish Names Committee (AFNC). The AFNS has been an official Australian Standard since July 2007 and has existed in draft form (The Australian Fish Names List) since 2001. Seafood Services Australia (SSA) serve as

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1764-553: The world. Most species of octopus have clams as a staple of their diet, up to and including the giants like the Giant Pacific octopus . Cultures around the world eat clams along with many other types of shellfish. In culinary use, within the eastern coast of the United States and large swathes of the Maritimes of Canada, the term "clam" most often refers to the hard clam , Mercenaria mercenaria . It may also refer to

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