#tawera

Endemic to the beachs of southern Australia and New Zealand, from the Eocene to the present.

Following the Bee Line

So I found myself following a literal bee line.  It was weird and I just had to know where they were going.  They didn't break formation all the way through the shops and just kept going.  Eventually they found the place they were looking for and just flew on in.   It was strangely fitting; some tavern called "Mead Haven."  Maybe they'd come here with a vengeance for all their unpaid time spent supplying them with honey.  Even the bees here want their cut of the profits.  

AKA Venus tasmanica, humphreyi, costulata and gallinula, Feathered Venerid, and Hen Venus.

More often found on SE coastlines, in sand off sheltered ocean beaches, from low tide to depth of about 35m.

Tawera is the Māori name for Venus, and it is indeed a Venerid clam. The genus was named by New Zealand paleontologist John Marwick in 1927, and this species by malacologist H. J. Finlay in 1928. Finlay didn't specify who Marion was in the only paper I could dig up - it turns out Marion Ivy Mary Keys was his wife.

Assuming T. marionae is actually a species.

notaspidea on inaturalist told me, as they gave me the ID, that

"In being ovate-trigonal and coarsely sculptured, this valve corresponds with the Tawera morphotype named T. marionae. However, one character that doesn't match is the internal colouration - Tawera marionae is described as dull white internally. So, whether T. marionae is a species or merely a southern form of T. spissa remains to be tested genetically. The drill holes would have been made by the predatory naticid gastropod Tanea zelandica."