Southwest Florida Shells

by José H. Leal

Family Mytilidae

Botula fusca

(Gmelin, 1791)

Cinnamon Mussel

Shel size to 18 mm; shell elliptical, externally sculpted with concentric ridges. Beaks rolled inward. Periostracum grayish-brown. This species is a borer living in dead shells and small coral heads. The shell illustrated was collected within a Kitten Paw, Plicatula gibbosa, shell. From the East End of Sanibel Island, Florida, by Jim Scatterday.