الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION & REVIEW OF LITERATURESOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The name Lithophaga lithophaga (European date mussel, L., 1758) comes from the Greek word lithophagous [lithos, stone; phagein, to eat] (Maggenti et al., 2008) which means it can bore holes 10-20 cm long in limestone rocks (Gonzalez et al., 2000). It is endolithic bivalve from family Mytilidae which has a glandular secretion used in boring calcareous substrata where it can live for more than 54 years (Morton and Scott, 1980; Galinou-Mitsoudi and Sinis, 1995; Devescovi, 2009). This species is occurring throughout the infra-littoral of the Mediterranean seacoasts (Fig. 1). It inhabits mostly shallow depths and distributed throughout the Atlantic Ocean from Portugal down to the northern coast of Angola (Devescovi, 2009, Fig. 1). Galinou-Mitsoudi and Sinis 1995) discussed that the date mussels have low growth rate due to its longevity and the date mussels of 4.8-5.2 cm have an age of 27±9 years. The maximum shell length and weight may reach 12 cm and 70 g, respectively (Ozvarol, 2016). L. lithophaga is one of the 17 molluscan species in the Mediterranean have been included in the Barcelona convention annex II and III and Bern convention appendix II as worthy of protection because of its overfishing (Katsanevakis et al., 2008; Coll et al., 2010). SCUBA divers were pealing the crusted surface of the rocks (without breaking) using a sharpened hammer like a knife and a long nose plier to pull mussel out which lead to earnest damage to calcareous coasts and the biological communities (Coll et al., 2010). The recruitment of damaged communities is very slow and sometimes impossible. So, Lithophaga can be considered as non-renewable biological resources (Fanelli et al., 1994).