Tridacna crocea, bored into a coral head on a reef in Palau
There are many types of giant clam. Not all of them are giant; the boring giant clam, Tridacna crocea, only grows to 10 cm long or so. The boring giant clam is not so named because it’s dull; its main skill is its ability to bore into the coral of its coral reef home and live with its entire shell and body embedded in the living coral.…
The heart cockle (Corculum cardissa) is so named because of its heart shaped shell shape. It is native to warm equatorial waters of the Indo-Pacific. While many bivalves sit with the their ventral valve facing down, the heart cockle sits on its side, with one side of both valves facing downward. the valves have adapted to resemble wings and are flat on the bottom
I study the giant clams, bivalves which can grow over three feet long and and are willingly “infected” by a symbiotic algae which they house in an altered stomach cavity. They provide their algae partners with nitrogen, a stable environment and even funnel light in their direction, and the algae happily share the fruit of their labor in the form of sugars. Imagine…
Giant clams have been a hard-to-miss part of coral reef ecosystems for the greater part of the last 38 million years. However, experts will be quick to admit that the part they play in these incredible systems remains rather shrouded in mystery. Now a new study hopes to pull back the veil and further our understanding of these clam colossi. (Photo : Flickr: BBM Explorer – Rob)
