الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION & REVIEW OF LITERATURESOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The European date-mussel, Lithophaga lithophaga, is an endolithic (endo= inside lithic= rocks) bivalve which living inside carbonate rocks (limestone). They dig galleries by glandular secretion (Morton and Scott, 1980). The mussel L. lithophaga is a common and widely distributed species on the rocky limestone shores (Milisic, 2000). Mediterranean Sea and it lives on hard substrates of the midlittoral and upper sublittoral zones (D’Angelo and Gargiullo, 1978). It is widespread in the infralittoral, usually at shallow depths, of the Mediterranean, of the east Atlantic from Portugal to Morocco and in the Red Sea (Fischer et al., 1987). According to Šimunovic and Grubelic (1992), L lithophaga populations are the densest from the sea level to the depth of 8 meters. In the depths greater than 8 meters, they occur in smaller numbers but small denser aggregations are possible. L. lithophaga can also be found at the depth of 20 m and more Gonzalez et al., 2000). Ozretic (2001) mentioned that L. lithophaga is a very slow growing mussel. It needs 15 to 20 years to reach the size of 5-6 cm, when it is suitable for human consumption. The life span of L. lithophaga was reached more than 54 years counting the annual growth lines in longitudinal shell sections. The highest growth rate is observed at the end of spring and early summer (Galinou-Mitsoudi and Sinis, 1995). Collection of L. lithophaga involves breaking of rocks and consequent heavy damages to rocky reefs have been formally banned in the last decades in many countries along the Mediterranean coast. Previously, the date mussel was widespread along the whole Mediterranean coastline, where it was frequently, but illegally harvested on a commercial scale (Fisher et al., 1987).