This Clam Sinks Ships

I'm a Nav. Arch/Ocean Engineer, in my humble opinion the copper sheathing of ships was the single greatest breakthrough of the entire age of sail simply because it stopped those blasted worms from eating our ships!

Considering most trees are salt sensitive it's amazing that a marine animal has evolved into this niche of eating driftwood.

> eats limestone hold up, you can't bury that lead

These pestilent molluscs are also the reason why Tasmania's Huon Pine (Lagarostrobus franklinii) was almost felled to extinction and also earned it's legendary status. Huon Pines were discovered to be immune to ship worms and basically everything that might otherwise rot or eat wood. The ancient trees, often living well past 1000 years old, had soft yet durable, easily worked wood that was laden in cedar-like resinoids and aromatic oils that instantly made it a sensation among early colonial Tasmanian ship builders. No need to paint the hulls of vessels or clad them in protective copper sheets to prevent shipworm consumption. Within barely a century, the trees were stripped from almost every river bank to feed the ravenous ship building industry until they were almost extinct. Today, the remaining stands are in national parks and the species is slowly recovering (very slowly given how slow the trees grow), but it's incredible what an impact the dread of shipworms had on what seeming was a totally unrelated species and ecosystem.

Who needs giant claws or tentacles to take down a ship when you could just EAT IT.

Don't turn the tables on the shipworms! They will eat them!

Lithoredo, which is the limestone eating shipworm, is a fascinating creature in my opinion.

We eat these shipworms in the Philippines, we call it tamilok. It tastes like oyster but it has this grainy texture as you eat it, probably the wood dust the animal ate

There's a few timbers that are virtually immune to shipworm. Teak is too tough, as any shipwright knows, and some timbers have such a high resin count, the worm won't touch them. Among these are a couple of Australian timbers, both very rare: Fraser Is Satinay and Huon pine are both famous for their long life in the ocean.

The best part of all this is that the most credited scientist throughout is literally named Dr. Shipway.

It's fascinating that an animal has evolved to fit into a niche of eating Driftwood! The one that eats Limestone atleast slightly makes sense, Maybe, Probably, Possibly.

HANK GREEN!!! My wallet will NEVER FORGIVE YOU if you keep producing all these amazing channels with such great merch!!! You’re teams are TOO GOOD at what they do for my own benefit. That being said, never stop doing what you’re doing. Sincerely a fan of Microcosmos, All the Scishows, Bizarre Beasts, Crash Course, and Eons

In southeast Asia, they are already on the menu

I mean people do eat them in Indonesia and South America. Split open some wood, pull out the stomach, and drizzle some seasoning. Supposedly it resembles oysters in flavor

Ship worm: engages in something called pseudo-copulation Me: who knew I'd have something in common with a ship worm?

I certainly would never have guess that a Bizarre Beasts video would ever end on "lets try to eat it"

I've eaten one of these raw, it was pretty good! It's a local delicacy; they are common in mangrove habitats ("tamilok" in the Philippines)

This is a super video, thank you to the Bizarre Beasts team for putting this together.

Incredible axolotl top!

these guys are called "Tamilok" in 🇵🇭, and they usually found in mangrooves resevoir as they eat those to control the somewhat exploding population, the local fishermen usually catch and sell them on markets its mostly eaten raw 🤯