Sentence examples for byssus from inspiring English sources
noun
An exceptionally fine and valuable fibre or cloth of ancient times. Originally used for fine flax and linens, its use was later extended to fine cottons, silks, and sea silk.
Both plants and animals have evolved mechanisms that help to anchor them to the substratum in flowing water (e.g., the holdfast of kelp or the byssus threads of mussels).
The byssus is a larval feature that is retained by adults of some bivalve groups, such as the true mussels (family Mytilidae) of marine and estuarine shores and the family Dreissenidae of fresh and estuarine waters.
Other bivalves have used the byssus to attach securely within crevices and thus to assume a laterally flattened, circular shape.
Complex glands secrete the quinone-tanned proteins of the byssus threads, by which mussels anchor themselves, and of the operculum, with which some sea snails stopper their shells.
The byssus, secreted by a gland in the foot, secures the animal to a hard surface in preparation for burrowing.
The release from a burrowing mode of life has been facilitated by the retention of a larval structure (the byssus) into adult life.
And the cultured kind require very little work on the part of the cook — just a quick rinse, the discarding of any with broken shells, and a removal of the byssus, or beard, which takes only a few minutes for several pounds of mussels.
Pull out the tough fibrous beards or "byssus" protruding from between the tightly closed shells.
In most species of these oysterlike bivalves, one shell valve (i.e., half) is closely appressed to a rock surface and has a large hole in its wall through which a calcified byssus (tuft of horny threads) attaches to the rock and thus anchors the animal.
Retention of the larval anchoring byssus into adult life has freed many bivalves from soft substrates, allowing them to colonize hard surfaces.
