Giant five foot shipworms found for first time by scientists
This slimy creatures have been known about for years, but now they have been found in the Philippines, according to the BBC.
Shipworm spends its life encased in a hard shell, submerged head-down in mud, which it feeds on and the exciting discovery has been documented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
It was Dr Daniel Distel, chief author of the report, said: ‘The strange shells have been found for centuries, because they are very sturdy and they last a long time. ‘But we’ve never known where to find them.’ One of Dr Distel’s students who stumbled upon the slimy find on social media.
Dr Distel said: ‘One of our students came in and said, ‘hey, look at this’, he’d found this really great video on YouTube. ‘We searched the literature and the scientific sources for years, and then we find it on YouTube. It’s the miracle of social media.’
This giant shipworms are not only unique for their size, but also their diets and feed on mud and marine sediment and as a result, they have smaller digestive systems compared to other shipworms.
Until now, drawings of a poorly-preserved dead giant shipworm from the 1960s was all scientists had to go on. But the researchers are being careful not to reveal the exact location of the worms, which were once found all over the globe.
Their outside tubes fetch a high asking price, putting them at risk of poachers.
A video showing the scientists cutting off one end of the shipworm’s shell before shaking it out makes for compelling viewing.
Dr Distel said: ‘It was like opening a soft-boiled egg. I just tapped on it very, very lightly with a chisel, made a circle, and the shell came off, just like an egg.
‘It feels a lot like it looks – it’s kind of slimy, but it wasn’t objectionable, it didn’t smell bad.’
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