Opmerkelijke vondst: tropische tapijtschelp aan de Normandische kust

During a week of fieldwork along the coast of Normandy, France, the author found a tropical carpet shell on the beach of Granville. Field guides could not properly identify the shell and therefore it was compared with the collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden and the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam. This comparison resulted in four possible identifications - Ruditapes variegatus, Venerupis aurea, Ruditapes philippinarum and Ruditapes semidecussatus. However, the specific shell colour pattern does not fully correspond with the pattern of these four species, making identification of the shell difficult. The most likely identification seems to be Ruditapes semidecussatus. In France carpet shells are cultured for consumption. The tropical carpet shell Rudiapes philippinarum has been cultured since 1972. This species can now be found outside of its cultivation areas, from the Gulf of Biscay to Brittany. It is not unlikely that the carpet shell from Normandy came to France in a similar way.