Horse mussel beds

What is it: 

Horse mussels can form dense raised beds and occur down to around 100m depth. They significantly modify the underlying habitat and provide substratum and refuge for a wide variety of species, including brittlestars, featherstars, crabs, whelks, sponges, sea firs, sea mats and sea squirts and are important settling grounds for commercially important bivalve molluscs such as scallops. Scotland holds around 85% of the known horse mussel beds in the UK and are found in sea loch and embayments from Shetland and Orkney and down the west coast and Outer Hebrides.

 

Links to Scotland's Marine Atlas: 
This information page is part of the theme: 
Horse mussel (modiolus modiolus) beds on open coast circalittoral mixed sediments © Marine Scotland