A giant worm-like sea creature the size of a baseball bat was recently spotted by scientists for the first time, and you may wish you’d never seen it.
Though their long, tusk-like shells had been first seen more than two centuries ago, scientists didn’t know what lived inside of them — until now. It turns out that the elusive creatures are giant shipworms, a kind of mollusk that feeds on decaying wood and evolved to look like a worm, according to a study recently published in PNAS.
The long, bluish-black animal can grow up to 3-5 feet long and lives inside a tube created from calcium carbonate secretions. At the bottom end of the tube is a mouth, which the shipworm must reabsorb in order to grow, and at the top end is a Y-shaped appendage which siphons water in and out.
A team of biologists collected specimens from a lagoon in the Philippines after seeing a YouTube video of people eating the animals.
Shipworms are actually clams that get their name from their habit of infesting ships and other wooden structures underwater. They burrow holes deep into the wood like termites.
But unlike their smaller relatives, giant shipworms spend their lives almost completely submerged in mud, filtering wood particles floating in the water. Instead of actually eating, bacteria in their gills break down hydrogen sulfide from the rotting wood to produce energy. Then that energy turns carbon dioxide from the seawater into nutrients for the shipworm, in a process similar to photosynthesis.
The symbiotic relationship between the shipworm and the bacteria could give scientists greater understanding of the way infections work in the human body.
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