The Giant Clam :: essays research papers

The giant clam is known as a take down dwellingmollusk. The domestication factor has become of banging importance to theIndo-Pacific peoples. Mainly in the argona of their diet. These huge clams atomic number 18 huge targets for fishermen and can be found easily. With the crystal watercomplection of the lower waters they live in makes them even easier to be spottedby the fishermen an by poachers. The people of this region eat every partof the remove of the animal. They either dry, cook, or eat them raw. InTaiwan there has been a bounteous illeagal industry of selling these huge clams.With a demand of somewhere around 100 tons of the meat a year that is worth around $7.50-$21.25 a kilogram at the dockside of Taiwan. It isbeing severely hunt by foreigners and the population of the giant clamis decreasing. The reefs that they live on are also being severely damagedand destroyed in overlarge amounts. The giant clam has been eliminated fromthe areas of Indonesia and the Phillippi nes. The species Tridacnid gigas andthe Tridacnid derasa are the most heavily hunted species. Tridacnid gigasare the largest of the giant clams. They grow to around a meter in distanceand weigh around 300 kilograms. These particular clams are hermaphroditeswhich transcend sexual maturity at around quintuplet years of age. They spray outlarge numbers of their eggs and sperm into the seawater which because meetto form a unembellished floating larvae. A large Tridacnid gigas has the abilityto release hundreds of millions of microscopic eggs in a virtuoso day, whichmakes it one of the most fertile marine invertebrates. However most of thefree floating larvae do not survive during their one week planktonic period.The ones that survive settle on a patch of hard reef by means of a stickybyssal threads and orient their lumbering mantles towards the sun. Theycontinue to grow their at a rate of around five to ten centimeters a year.But they are not safe from other reef predators unti l they are around2.5 years old, which makes this large species hard to find.