People whose lives have been connected to water have always liked jewellery and going on adventures. If not in the salty, blue-striped water, where are the lost treasures and boxes that have sunk? Some of these “chests” will also fight for their spoils!
Please put your hand inside of me. I’m sure you want it!
People who went pearl diving are said to have left at least limbs in these bivalves and sometimes whole lives. In the US Navy manuals written in America, there were even directions on how to quickly get free from the grip of strong “jaws.” Does this mussel really look like a threat?
You can see that a big tridacna can get over 1.5 metres long and 300 kilogrammes heavy. Because of this, it is the world’s largest bivalve snail. It’s easy to think it’s a chest, which is what draws young hands to it. Especially since the folds of the mantle already show the valuable shine of a pearl. Yes, that’s right! The Puerto Pearl is the biggest sparkler that has ever been found. It weighs 34 kg!
When you take a pot of borscht out of the fridge after keeping it there for two months.
But even if you get really lucky and rush to the nearest pawnshop with joy when you find the treasure, you will feel bad about it. These stones aren’t worth anything as jewellery. The reason for this is that these pearls don’t always have a mother-of-pearl shell. They are mostly made up of thick chalk called calcium carbonate. And who would agree to wear a metal chain that weighs tens of kilogrammes?
Even though it’s not a piece of jewellery, the record Puerto Pearl is worth almost $100 million.
Does it really happen that the tridacna is a sneaky chest that lures people in with cheap cakes only to kill them in the dark? No, the mollusk doesn’t hunt people. He doesn’t even close his mouth all the way. It would only bite out of fear for a big tridacna. The bivalve’s shell is very sensitive to changes in the water. She tries to keep herself away from anyone who might invade her personal space without her permission. She does move slowly, though. All the stories about the mollusk come from the fact that it is so big. Fear has big eyes.
So, who is the killer now?
In addition, our bivalve is usually a happy gardener instead of a vicious eater! The huge tridacna lives in the coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific seas. The two-valve turns its valves up towards the air and sinks its back in the ground. Single-celled algae grow in a field that forms on the mantle! The tridacna protects them, and the two plants also trade the chemicals that they make through photosynthesis. Even so, the bivalve moves water through the mantle by eating plankton if the union with single-celled animals has not yet happened.
When algae touch the tridacna’s skin, it turns a bright blue colour.
There is love in the world of chest farmers as well. They are all hermaphrodites at first. They can’t fertilise each other, though. Mollusks want to start a family, so they spit out sexual cells into the water. The tridacna spits out the fertilised egg after it has fertilised it inside the shell of another snail.
Astrid, your gifts there didn’t mean anything to me at all.
The caterpillar hatches after 12 hours. She can swim as much as she wants for a few weeks while her leg heals. The cub is already able to easily move down the bottom with the help of the limb. It is looking for a place to make a stable foothold that will last up to 100 years in a minute.
