Do they find the shells lying around and climb inside them? Do the shells form from sand around their glob bodies over the course of a hundred years?
In: Biology
Scallops are a type of [mollusc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollusca). They are [bivalves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivalvia), which describes the way their shell is in two halves, joined by a hinge. You are probably more familiar with their relatives the [gastropods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastropoda), many of which have a shell which have a coiled shell (like the ones you see on garden snails). Other bivalves you may be familiar with include mussels and clams.
The [shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivalve_shell) is a part of the animal and they grow it. It’s made calcium carbonate which they extract from the water. While in no way a perfect analogy, you can think of it as us growing nails, but nails so big they encase us completely.
Scallops are “small globs of meat” but so are many invertebrates. They are very simple animals with no brain, just a basic nervous system. Most scallops live for a decade or two. Some species can reach [20 years](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/atlantic-sea-scallop).
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