← Feed

Posts

• Post #4367845

  Giant clams love light. As a general rule, the more light they can get for their symbiotic algae, the better. Some species will even continue to photosynthesize in air for hours exposed by the tide, since their photosynthesis provides them some oxygen. Which makes the "devil clam" (Tridacna mbalavuana) from Tonga and Fiji so weird. It lives up to 100 ft down! The super clear waters where it's found allow it to live as a kind of counterpart to mesophotic corals, which are able to ph...

• Post #4067941

  Clams can integrate all sorts of toxins from the phytoplankton they eat. Some prominent marine ones include paralytic shellfish poisoning, amnesic shellfish poisoning, and diarrhetic shellfish poisoning. There are dozens of known toxins around the world. In freshwater they can accumulate microcystin, which damages the liver. Before collecting clams for eating, always check for warnings from the local water quality or public health agency! #clamFacts

• Post #4040074

  For some reason I had never considered that peanuts are actually the product of a fruit that grows under the ground. It's called geocarpy. The flowers are pollinated and the pods drop down to the ground as "pegs", growing into the soil. To me, this is absolutely crazy. Peanuts are crazy.

• Post #3970759

  I have to pay increasing attention to what my phone does to pictures it takes. For example, my new Motorola phone includes a super zoom feature that actually uses generative AI to fill in details as it crops in! I turned it off, but others might not notice and upload such digitally created images to iNaturalist, where they'd actually impact scientific research https://petapixel.com/2026/07/20/scientists-warn-wildlife-photographers-ai-enhanced-bird-photos-could-threaten-research/

• Post #3941578

  Was trying to think of a tie-in post between clams and soccer and honestly folks, I got nothin

• Post #3836692

  RE: https://eupolicy.social/@GreenpeaceEU/116923909086714251 Psst...clams already provide us with tens of billions of free nitrogen removal services a year, and that's just a fraction of their power. If we helped them more through active aquaculture, we could cut nitrogen pollution from farming by about half! #clamFacts

• Post #3789486

  Once zebra or quagga mussels get into a water body, it is very difficult to remove them. Many common molluscicides like copper or chlorine are also very harmful to other life forms. Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CL145A is a bacterium that produces a toxin highly specific to zebra and quagga mussels. It can be released as dead cells near the mussels, which ingest it, with the toxin destroying their digestive system. In this way it is similar to Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti), which is...

• Post #3750966

  The best discussion of the actual biology of the Reflecting Pool algal bloom I've seen so far, including descriptions and microscope pics from GMU professor Rosalina Stancheva Christova. The green algae Desmodesmus is taking advantage of warm water, fresh nutrients and a lack of competition in the new pool water to explode in population! In this way it's analogous to weeds proliferating in disturbed soils. If there's anything I've learned about algae, it will usua...

• Post #3750965

  @thomasfuchs

• Post #3750964

  Olympia oysters (Ostrea lurida) are our native oyster in estuaries on the West coast of North America. They are marvels of evolution, able to survive extreme swings in salinity and turbidity often seen in their native environment. As another adaptation to their extreme habitat, they brood their young within their shell for a couple weeks to a month, to increase their chances of survival. Some years, they may be nearly wiped out by extreme high flow events, and they maximize their chances of find...

• Post #3750963

  Georges Bank is a broad elevated area separating the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic. It has long been a desirable fishing location, and it is ideal habitat for scallops, with its sandy bottom and elevated position in the path of currents delivering phytoplankton food. But in recent years, the northern edge has been closed to scallop fishing. Scallop populations have been plateauing or falling across the Bank, and underwater surveys have determined that the northern edge of the Bank is an import...

• Post #3750962

  In 1764, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that when he was sick with smallpox, he ate 30 oysters to try to get better. I can't find any evidence that oysters have special therapeutic value against smallpox, though they are rich in zinc, which is an essential mineral for the immune system! #clamFacts https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17640504ja

• Post #3633742

  Bivalve hinges have to be very resilient, considering the animal's very existence depends on keeping the valves attached and articulated. One team of researchers mechanically opened and closed a freshwater mussel shell 1.5 million times, finding no signs of cracking or deformation from the strain! They found that the mussel uses a fan-shaped structure between the valves to deflect stresses. In the crystal of the shell, a complex fabric of mineral fibers are wrapped in organic materials that...

• Post #3368304

  Ophiocordyceps is iconic for its ability to infect ants and change their nervous system to force them to climb high, where the fungus can fruit and spread spores to infect more ants. Pleurocordyceps is a hyperparasitic fungus that eats Ophiocordyceps. It isn't really a friend to the ants, since it has no interest in fully wiping out its host. But it makes for an interesting dynamic, and I continue to think it would make an interesting Alien movie or Last of Us sequel to introduce a hyperpara...

• Post #3329048

• Post #3144959

  I don't supplement CO2 in my aquarium, so it is a limiting factor for the plants in there, as it is in many freshwater aquatic ecosystems. For a long time, the tapegrass Vallisneria spiralis dominated in the tank. Its cheat code is that it can use bicarbonate (HCO3-) as a carbon source for photosynthesis. It uses an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, to transform the plentiful bicarbonate in my very hard tap water to CO2, which it then uses for photosynthesis. About half of aquatic plants have...

• Post #3144958

  Oysters are often farmed in floating cages or bags. This way they are protected from many predators, and floating near the surface they are always among the the tasty phytoplankton that are their preferred food, rather than having to wait for the plankton to sink to the bottom! #clamFacts

• Post #3144957

  Pulse oximetry has previously been noted to have a bias against people with higher skin melanin content. It over-measures blood oxygen for Black people and others with more melanin, because most oximeters were calibrated for people with light skin. This can lead to someone with a real blood O2 reading of 91% reading as 94%. A new study shows that has led to different levels of follow-up care, with Black patients being less likely to receive supplemental oxygen as a result of this systematic mism...

• Post #2822603

  Larval oysters have an eye which can detect wavelength and intensity of light. They use the ratio of red and blue light to determine the correct depth at which to settle and attach to the bottom, working from the principle that red light doesn't penetrate as far into the water as blue light! They are phototaxic, attracted to depths where red light is present, and swim up and away from places where only blue light is present #clamFacts

• Post #2211546

  not enough people are asking, what is the water-speed velocity of an unladen scallop?

• Post #2203534

  ‪It is surprisingly common to find whole clam shells in everyday neighborhood concrete, since they often use sand or gravel mined from shallow aquatic environments to make the concrete. The legendary malacologist Tim Pearce from Carnegie Museum wrote about finding invasive Corbicula clams in a sidewalk! #clamFacts https://carnegiemnh.org/clams-in-the-concrete-how-old-is-this-sidewalk/

• Post #2130741

  I am a very specific kind of reply guy. If someone jokes about the appearance of geoducks (Panopea), I must appear and remind them THEY👏LOOKED👏LIKE👏THAT👏FIRST since the Jurassic!! #clamFacts

• Post #2049459

  Giant clams can survive for hours out of water. They actually produce enough oxygen through the action of their photosynthetic algal symbionts to power their respiration for short periods, even with no water to breathe from. But even they have limits, and last year the famous clam garden of Orpheus Island, where 100s of 40-year old specimens were thriving, was wiped out by weeks of low salinity after a storm event. These 4 ft long clams were the legacy of an aquaculture research program from the...

• Post #1953348

  Parthenogensis (clonal reproduction of females) is pretty unusual. Corbicula fluminea is in an even smaller club: it is one of only a few species across the entire tree of life known to use androgenesis! They're hermaphrodite and reproduce asexually, but only the paternal genome is passed on, while the maternal genome is literally discarded out of the cell nucleus! This clonal reproduction has enabled it to become a notorious invasive species: where one hitches a ride, there can quickly...

• Post #1847091

  Moon clams are really, really weird. They live with their shell permanently open on their back like a snail, and move around on their foot. Their soft mantle extends over their shell, so they end up looking a lot like cowry snails. They are found in Western Australia, where they live symbiotically in the burrows built by shrimp. Many members of their superfamily, Galeommatoidea, are symbiotic with other creatures. Some others in the family can also use their foot for snail-like locomotion, but m...

• Post #1847089

  Idea: clamocracy

• Post #1847088

  Blunt gaper (Mya truncata) clams are an important food source in the Arctic. These clams are prolific from the intertidal to 70 m deep and are a favorite of walruses! Some Inuit communities time their harvest for the year's lowest tide when the greatest number are exposed! #clamFacts https://youtube.com/watch?v=dFAI2Czj0Zs&si=mYkXQz3gDHlHwMtQ

• Post #1793258

  RE: https://posts.rat.pictures/@hannah/116485850092839757 This is actually one of the top 3 questions I get asked. It is a delicate scicomm exercise explaining the clams and the bees to a roomful of kindergardeners

• Post #1762784

  Anyone got a high res version? This is Exhibit 1 from the Comey indictment. If the pic is from North Carolina coast, the 8 looks like mostly Dinocardium robusta, the giant Atlantic cockle. The 6 probably the same but stained by anoxic sediment. The 4+7 look like a mix of Crassostrea virginica (Eastern oyster) and Geukensia demissa (Eastern ribbed mussel). Maybe also some ponderous ark, Noetia ponderosa and maybe also a Glycymeris (bittersweet clam) in the 8 #clamFacts

• Post #1571925

  Throughout my limited time in science, I've gotten a lot of no's. I used to ask for the notes and rationales when I didn't get a grant, but over time, I realized like their reasons are usually made up to back-rationalize what is actually a gut decision by each member of the evaluation group. I was told as a grad student to re-apply for some funding when I had some more publications, but then someone else with no publication record got the award. I was told my postdoc proj...