What is a piddock?

Is a piddock a very small paddock? No actually you have probably one in your house which you have collected on holiday.

"Pebbles with holes in them are a common occurrence on the beaches along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset – and lots of other U.K. locations as well. Many of these tunnels, burrows or borings have been made by small marine invertebrate animals such as certain species of bivalved molluscs, polychaete worms, and even sponges. The arrangement of pebbles shown in the photograph above illustrates a selection of the different kinds of holes created by these animals in soft rocks.

In this post I am just going to talk briefly about the larger tunnels which tend to be about a centimeter or more in diameter. These have been excavated by rock-boring bivalve molluscs. There are several types whose habits result in these borings and it is not easy to say which species has made which tunnel from the shape and size of the holes alone. Fortunately, the shells of these creatures often remain in the burrows. The appearance of the shells is diagnostic for each species. Unfortunately, the shells of some of these bivalves are both surprisingly fragile and wedged securely in the burrow so that they are difficult to extract.

The most commonly occurring rock-boring molluscs are the Piddocks and some other related species. From the Pholadidae family, for example, these include the Common Piddock Pholas dactylus Linnaeus and the White Piddock Barnea candida(Linnaeus). From the Hiatellidae family, these include the Wrinkled Rock-borer Hiatella arctica (Linnaeus). And from the Gastrochaenidae, the Flask Shell Gastrochaena dubia(Pennant)."

https://natureinfocus.blog/2011/04/09/pebbles-with-holes-made-by-sea-creatures/