The clams found along Maine’s coast have something peculiar in common with an elderly cousin of theirs found worldwide.
Peculiar to us, that is, not to themselves.
To wit, they live to be hundreds of years old, making them arguably the longest living animal on the planet.
Scientists are still trying to figure out why those succulent clams that end up in your chowder live so long before they do.
An article just published in NewScientist.com is marking the 20th anniversary of the discovery of a 507-year-old clam off Iceland.
They knew clams lived for centuries but they happened to pick one from the mud just to do more research on it to figure out how the heck they live for so many years.
They even gave it a name, Hafrun, an Icelandic name that means “mystery of the ocean.”
The ocean quahog – Arctica islandica the official name – is the same type of clams living peacefully in Maine’s cold, dark coastal mud flats.
What most people simply don’t realize is how old these clams are – centuries, in many cases.
In fact one of the reasons they live so long is because of the cold water. And they also have very slow metabolisms.
But lots of subterranean oceanic creatures live in similar conditions and don’t survive as long.
Hafrun became a scientific celebrity as researchers began counting the rings on its shell as well as endeavoring to understand other characteristics about it to figure out how it and its brethren live for so many years.
But the sad irony to Hafrun is, despite living 507 years in the ocean, it died when scientists tried to crack open its shell to peer inside.
If you’re asking yourself “what were they thinking?” you’d be in good company.
In fact, a woman on X, the platform formally known as Twitter, posed that very question Wednesday after reading the post about the research into Hafrun.
“So you found a 500-year-old clam and killed it?” asked Jacqueline Wiesner. “I really hope not. What would be the point of that exactly?”
Wiesner, of course, is right.
Chalk it up to science.
So the next time some vegetarian gives you a hard time as you’re eating your chowder, just say, “if you think I’m bad you should see what the scientists do to them.”
