Delicious: An ordinary clam doing what appears to be an extraordinarily strange act has made it a celebrity, as thousands of people have watched the creature lap up a pinch of saltAn ordinary clam doing what appears to be an extraordinarily strange act has made it a celebrity, as thousands of people have watched the creature lap up a pinch of salt.
A video of the animal's antics has accrued nearly 200,000 views as people cannot figure out what has caused the clam to season itself.
The clam sits on a dinner table with salt scattered around it until a cream, pulpy 'tongue' emerges from its shell, appearing to take a sample of its salty surroundings.
Mesmerizing: A video of the animal's antics has accrued nearly 200,000 views as people cannot figure out what has caused the clam to season itself
Seasoning: The clam sits on a dinner table with salt scattered around it until a cream, pulpy 'tongue' emerges from its shell, appearing to take a sample of its salty surroundingsThe sea creature's 'tongue' slowly creeps out of the shell and taps down on the table, elongating till it is nearly a full body-length away.
It rescinds, dripping with moisture, before dipping back out for more.
The MailOnline spoke to Miriam Goldstein, a graduate student of oceanography at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, to find out what on earth this clam is up to.
Length: The sea creature's 'tongue' slowly creeps out of the shell and taps down on the table, elongating till it is nearly a full body-length away'The clam is not eating salt,' she said. 'That appendage isn't the clam's tongue, it's the clam's foot.'
Ms Goldstein said that most clams use their 'feet' to move and to dig, as most live buried under sand or mud.
'This clam on the table is probably trying to find a place to dig itself in,' she said to the MailOnline.
Hungry: It rescinds, dripping with moisture, before dipping back out for more
Despite the visual 'evidence,' clams do not eat salt, they eat tiny plants and animals that float around in water using their siphons, or straw-like appendages.
'One siphon sucks water in so the clam can filter out the food, and the other siphon squirts water out,' Mrs Goldstein said. Moreover, the salt may even be hurting the clam.
'It is possible that the salt on the table is hurting the clam, which is why it withdraws its foot after touching it,' Ms Goldstein said.
Another possibility is that the clam, though mesmerizing to watch, might be giving the salt the brush-off. '[It is] possible that the clam does not care about the salt at all,' she said.
With the mystery solved, one can safely say this clam is not, in fact, eating salt because clams don't have tongues; they have feet.
source: dailymail
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