Giant Oyster Found in Panama Bay's Shore.

Written by Esteban Non

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Ever since the first sightings of the giant squid, colossal squid, the vampire squid and the giant jellyfishes we have come to understand that we know less than three percent of the actual sea life.

It's no wonder that every day, scientists all over the world are making incredible discoveries around the shores of the Caribbean seas and this is the story of one of those wonders.

Cephalopods are the most intelligent, most mobile, and the largest of all mollusks. Squid, octopuses, cuttlefish, the chambered nautilus, and their relatives display remarkable diversity in size and lifestyle with adaptations for predation, locomotion, disguise, and communication.

Around the cephalopods family we dig into the classes and find the bivale class, which holds the family of the oysters (a common name for a number of different families of saltwater clams, bivalve mollusks that live in marine or brackish habitats).


They live up to twenty (20) years, and usually length from three (3) inches to fourteen (14) inches. True oysters, which belong to the Ostreidae family, are found throughout the world's oceans, usually in shallow waters and in colonies called beds or reefs.


Oysters, as we mentioned earlier tend to live up to twenty (20) years, but the latest discovery changed the perspective of what we already knew and set bases to research more into their family.

The giant clam (Tridacna gigas), known as pā'ua in Cook Islands Māori, is a clam that is the largest living bivalve mollusk and it's considered bigger than any other oyster but it is one of the most endangered clam species.

Among the oyster family, the clams are widely consumed as a gourmet dish, creating high levels of pollution and great damage on their habitat.

Living no more than twenty (20) years, they reach their biggest size somewhere around the seventeen (17) years and may reach in length from two (2) up to four (4) meters wide. They are considered the exception in the oyster family. Late in the evening of December, 27, 2015, we found something different.

Today, December 28, 2015, after several examinations, Biologist Robert De Russo from the Smithsonian institute of research in Panama City, Panama, has confirmed that they found in the shores of the Panama a bigger clam. "one of a kind" - Said Robert astonished by explaining that not only the clam had approximately one-hundred years and lengths around nine meters and a half (9.5m).

Been the biggest clam ever found around the shores of the Pacific Ocean, deliberations started from whether keep it alive or kill it in order to study how it reached that size.
Shortly after deliberations started they decided to communicate with the clam to see its reaction about being transported from its habitat to a facility in Miami. Shortly after being asked about the transition it popped a huge pearl and died. It's widely known that clams have no decision skills.

"It was a huge relief that it died, now we have a better understanding of their biology and we will start further investigations in order to find similar specimens. Now we know a little bit more but we shall always be bewildered by the wonders of the sea" -De Russo later stated following the chain of events produced by the giant clam "Tridacna gigas" found in Panama City, Panama.



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