See text Mytilus is a cosmopolitan genus of medium to large-sized edible, mainly saltwater mussels, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Mytilidae.

[1] Mussels have a gray to blue-purple, fully grown shell about 5 - 10 centimeters long with an elongated oval shape.

The tiny food particles (plant and animal plankton) stick to the mucous layer of the gills.

The fertilized egg cells become trochophoral larvae, 99.9 percent of which are eaten in the course of their four-week development into young mussels.

The reason mussels live in such large colonies (also called banks) is because it gives the males a much greater chance of fertilizing eggs.

After the larvae have developed freely floating as plankton for about four weeks, they attach themselves to stones, stakes, shill, sand and other mussels with byssus threads.