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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And in this episode, we're gonna be diving deeper on

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Speaker 2: a topic that we first explored just a little bit

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Speaker 2: on an episode of Automilia Stupendium, which of course is

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Speaker 2: one of our shorties that airs on Wednesdays, and that

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Speaker 2: is the subject of the Giant Clam. I found this

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Speaker 2: to be a fascinating topic to explore because, on one hand,

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Speaker 2: the giant clam is just an amazing organism, notable not

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Speaker 2: only for its size but also for its unique symbiosis.

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Speaker 2: But in addition to this, it's an organism that has

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Speaker 2: continually invited creative but highly inaccurate ideas about how they

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Speaker 2: actually behave.

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Speaker 3: It's not hard to see why people might look at

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Speaker 3: this thing and think that it will bite you, because

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Speaker 3: it just looks like the whole thing is just a

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Speaker 3: pair of jaws like cartoon teeth.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, And as we'll be exploring, I think the

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Speaker 2: really interesting thing here is that you see this, this idea,

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Speaker 2: this interpretation resonating not only with people who don't know

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Speaker 2: any better. Who are you know, one or multiple degrees

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Speaker 2: away from this organism and its natural habitat, but also

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Speaker 2: people in close proximity to it, or just can be

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Speaker 2: overwhelmed by the fact that it looks like a big mouth.

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Speaker 2: What if it was like a big mouth? And what

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Speaker 2: would the consequences of that be. The most pervasive idea,

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Speaker 2: of course, is we're talking about the idea that a

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Speaker 2: giant clam might latch onto your leg while you were

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Speaker 2: diving or snorkeling, or even in a very cartoon sense,

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Speaker 2: swallow you whole. And to be clear, just to go

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Speaker 2: ahead and get this out at the top, this has

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Speaker 2: never happened. There's no recorded evidence of it ever happening,

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Speaker 2: and for reasons we'll discuss, very good reasons. It pretty

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Speaker 2: much never could happen. That's right.

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Speaker 3: There's like one real famous anecdote of a guy claiming

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Speaker 3: that it happened, and he was there and I saw

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Speaker 3: one of the babies and the baby looked at me.

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Speaker 3: There are strong reasons for thinking that this story is

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Speaker 3: not true, and other than that, it's mostly just vague

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Speaker 3: generalizations from people not citing any evidence or fictional storytelling.

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Speaker 2: Right, right, Ben. You know that there are all sorts

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Speaker 2: of things that can go wrong in the water, and

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Speaker 2: there are lots of ways you can become injured and

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Speaker 2: so forth, but this is not really one of them.

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Speaker 2: And I think if you were gonna, if you were

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Speaker 2: going to pin your death on a giant clam, it

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Speaker 2: would be like you would have to essentially like strap

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Speaker 2: yourself to the giant clam and die drown underwater. You

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Speaker 2: would have to frame it in a major, insignificant way.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, in some ways, this I think is reminiscent

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Speaker 2: of our recent look at manta rays in the ways

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Speaker 2: that European sailors in particular misinterpreted the great fish as

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Speaker 2: a threat. But again, the curious thing about the myth

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Speaker 2: of the man eating clam is that while you only

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Speaker 2: find it circulating in the nineteenth and twentieth century among

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Speaker 2: Europeans and Americans, the idea also exists among native peoples,

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Speaker 2: who would have had more hands on understanding of what

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Speaker 2: these creatures were all about. But again, we're susceptible to

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Speaker 2: on one level, the kind of creative thinking, like you know,

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Speaker 2: this can occur separate from a logical interpretation. You know,

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Speaker 2: the idea that you know it's not a mouth, but

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Speaker 2: what if it is a mouth? And I think we'll

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Speaker 2: maybe get into a little bit about how maybe we're

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Speaker 2: just hardwired to see the jaws that could consume us,

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Speaker 2: even if we know those are not jaws. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: it just I think it might just boil down to

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Speaker 2: the fact that a giant clam, especially just looks too

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Speaker 2: much like a big old mouth for us to move

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Speaker 2: past it.

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Speaker 3: And if you've never seen one of these, by the way,

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Speaker 3: you can look up a giant clam or tridacna clam

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Speaker 3: tridac na. These things have a waviness to their shells,

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Speaker 3: you know, the way the shell closes it. It is

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Speaker 3: not just a straight curved line across. It waves up

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Speaker 3: and down like a you know, oscillation of a sound

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Speaker 3: wave or something, which sort of suggests teeth and further

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Speaker 3: lends itself into the mouth interpretation.

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Speaker 2: Now, speaking of mouths, it's interesting that tridacna apparently stems

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Speaker 2: from the Latin for three bites, and this goes back

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Speaker 2: to the writings of Like Plenty of the Elder and

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Speaker 2: even the Conquest of Alexander the Great, where it was

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Speaker 2: said that these could supply such meat as to require

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Speaker 2: not one, not two, but three bites for you to

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Speaker 2: consume it all. So the name actually originates in us

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Speaker 2: eating them, rather than any fabulous reversal on that.

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Speaker 3: And people do eat them. By the way, A lot

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Speaker 3: of people believe the meat of this clam is a

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Speaker 3: is a delicacy. A lot of people think it's really delicious.

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Speaker 3: This has greatly harmed the clams. They are now in

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Speaker 3: a I believe, listed by the IUCN as a critically

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Speaker 3: endangered species, and there were efforts at combating this by

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Speaker 3: changing over some of the trade in their meat to

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Speaker 3: like farmed populations instead of wild populations, receding wild populations

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Speaker 3: and things like that. But yeah, people are definitely getting

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Speaker 3: some three bites in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because they're an important part of coral reef environments,

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Speaker 2: the coral reef environments that they call home. Now, I

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Speaker 2: was excited to look into giant clams. I hadn't really

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Speaker 2: I didn't really have giant clams on my mind at all, because,

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Speaker 2: aside from maybe in the background, I had kind of

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Speaker 2: like a Looney Tunes idea of them, you know, swallowing

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Speaker 2: a diving bugs bunny or something to that effect. But

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Speaker 2: as I've previously mentioned on the show. Over the summer,

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Speaker 2: I had the privilege of visiting the islands of raja

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Speaker 2: Ampat in Indonesia, where rich diversity of marine life, and

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Speaker 2: this included the giant Tradacna clams, and of course the

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Speaker 2: biggest of all Tradacna geigis, and a particularly large one

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Speaker 2: in the area was known informally as Wu Tang clam.

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Speaker 2: And so I didn't get to dive right down to

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Speaker 2: Wu Tang clam because Wu Tang clam was like a

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Speaker 2: little deeper than some of the other than many of

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Speaker 2: the other giant clams I was seeing, but it was

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Speaker 2: still substantially large. And I included a photograph of Wu

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Speaker 2: Tang clam for you here, Joe. I'm I'm like ninety

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Speaker 2: nine percent sure this is Wu Tang clam. But this

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Speaker 2: is a shot from down there at its level with

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Speaker 2: proper lighting.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, just looking at this one image here,

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Speaker 3: it is so crusty with life all over it.

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Speaker 2: It's hard to.

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Speaker 3: See this as just one organism, as one clam with

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Speaker 3: its two valves, you know, slightly parted. It looks more

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Speaker 3: like a I don't know, a big piece of coral

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Speaker 3: reef for something.

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Speaker 2: Well, that that underscores the reality here that yeah, they

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Speaker 2: are reef builders in the long term, like you know,

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Speaker 2: they settle, they grow there in one spot, and when

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Speaker 2: they eventually pass on for one reason or another, you

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Speaker 2: know they will be the bone of future coral reefs.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, that's one of the reasons they're so vitally

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Speaker 2: important to these environments.

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Speaker 3: Another reason, I think, Rob maybe you can confirm this

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Speaker 3: because I guess you have seen them up close. I

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Speaker 3: think sometimes people might not recognize they are looking at

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Speaker 3: a giant clam, especially if they're like looking down from above,

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Speaker 3: because it's not you don't obviously see the shell. You

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Speaker 3: might just see a kind of ripply looking sheet of

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Speaker 3: the inner flesh of the clam, like the mantle protruding

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Speaker 3: from out of the shell. Because in a lot of

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Speaker 3: cases they will be perched somewhere in a kind of

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Speaker 3: sunlit sea bottom and they're trying to spread out and

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Speaker 3: gather sunlight on the fleshy parts. And we can talk

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Speaker 3: about the reasons for that in just a minute here.

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Speaker 2: But you might not.

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Speaker 3: Actually see something that looks like a clam. You might say,

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Speaker 3: what is this a big kind of flat ripple a

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Speaker 3: sea cucumber or something. Because you're just seeing the mantle.

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Speaker 2: Right right, and the mantle tissue, it can be really

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Speaker 2: eye catching. Certainly saw this a lot with the various

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Speaker 2: giant clams that I was snorkling over. They almost feel

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Speaker 2: magical at times, seeming to pulsate with a strange energy,

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Speaker 2: and then they would as you would get near them,

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Speaker 2: they would sense you for reasons that I'll get into,

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Speaker 2: and the smaller varieties in particular would often kind of

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Speaker 2: like maybe not close all the way, but kind of tense. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: They were very vibrant to look at, and to your point, yeah,

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Speaker 2: they are. They are facing mouth up if you will,

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Speaker 2: because the mansle tissue needs to be, you know, have

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Speaker 2: maximum exposure to sunlight. Whereas the Looney Tunes version of

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Speaker 2: the giant clam that might eat bugs, bunny that you

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Speaker 2: tend to imagine it positioned less vertically and more horizontally.

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Speaker 3: You're right, because it's like a crocodile's mouth.

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Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, So, as I was passing over these these clans,

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Speaker 2: the interesting thing is I still knew enough about clams

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Speaker 2: and giant clams to know that these things were not

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Speaker 2: a danger to me. They were not actually going to

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Speaker 2: try and bite me or anything to that effect. And

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Speaker 2: yet there is this undeniable resemblance to some sort of

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Speaker 2: a big fleshy mouth or secondary secondarily perhaps some sort

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Speaker 2: of yonic imagery. And so these associations I thought about

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Speaker 2: this fair amount as I was passing over them snorkeling, Like,

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Speaker 2: these associations connect with us, I think on a primal level,

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Speaker 2: and it's hard not to at least casually think of

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Speaker 2: what you're seeing in anthropomorphic terms, comparing them to basic

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Speaker 2: human physiological analogues and analogs that are like very closely

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Speaker 2: tied in to our survival and reproduction and so forth. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: mostly we're going to talk about giant clams as mouths.

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Speaker 2: But on the subject of yonic imagery, we do certainly

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Speaker 2: see interpretations of clamshells in general in the giant clamshell,

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Speaker 2: as well as vulva in its use as fertility emblems

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Speaker 2: as well as currency in some cultures in the past.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes you'll even see like Bodicelli's rendition of the Birth

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Speaker 2: of Venus sided in there as well, though the shell

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Speaker 2: that he depicts in that painting is a scallop shell,

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Speaker 2: I believe, and not actually a clamshell, but it is

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Speaker 2: presented on a scale that is more in keeping with

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Speaker 2: a giant clamshell.

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Speaker 3: Though I think actually in that that's also bigger than

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Speaker 3: any known giant clam.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as we'll discuss giant clamshells, I think about the

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Speaker 2: maximum you're going to get is like four feet.

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Speaker 3: Across, Yeah, which is very big, still very big.

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Speaker 2: It's still enormous. But you know, they can't fit a venus. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you couldn't fit a whole venus in there. You'd have

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Speaker 2: to really scrunch your up. Still seashells in general, you know,

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Speaker 2: pop up and Renaissance paintings, paintings sometimes with erotic suggestions

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Speaker 2: and their usage. Though quite incidentally, there is a venus

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Speaker 2: genus of clam. I was reading about this recently. Eighteenth

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Speaker 2: century Swedish naturalist and father of modern taxonomy, Carl Linaeus

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Speaker 2: famously described the venus claim in quite sexual terms, which

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Speaker 2: was pretty controversial at the time. Critics charged that he

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Speaker 2: quote indulged in obscene illusions. Suffice to say, it seems

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Speaker 2: quite a common interpretation, second only to the view of

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Speaker 2: the clam as a mouth.

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Speaker 3: Was Linnaeus not otherwise really known for very expressive or

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Speaker 3: controversial descriptions.

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Speaker 2: Correct. That's my understanding is that this was kind of

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Speaker 2: an outlier where suddenly everyone was like, whoa, whoa, what

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Speaker 2: are you doing? But you know, I guess the controversy

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Speaker 2: died down after a while.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it does seem like a biology is a funny

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Speaker 3: domain to get upset about that in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, speaking of biology, let's let's

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Speaker 2: let's go through some of the basics of the giant

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Speaker 2: clam here, particularly so again we're talking about for the

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Speaker 2: most part, we're talking about Tridacna gaigis, and it can

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Speaker 2: be found in coral reefs of the South Pacific and

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Speaker 2: Indian Oceans. They can reach sizes of up to two

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty kerls are five hundred and fifty pounds,

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Speaker 2: and they can grow to somewhere over four feet or

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Speaker 2: one point two meters long or across. So again, maybe

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Speaker 2: not quite man swallowing size like we would see in

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Speaker 2: our fiction, but still incredibly big. Like they still look

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Speaker 2: like a they can still look like a massive like

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Speaker 2: bio chest there on the seafloor. Yeah. Now, the giant clam,

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Speaker 2: to be sure here, doesn't really have a mouth, especially

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Speaker 2: in the way, you might read it as again the

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Speaker 2: bugs bunny swallowing mouth. Instead, we have the valves, and

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Speaker 2: they are bivalves. Remember, so we have the like the

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Speaker 2: two shells that essentially howls the organism, and inside they

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Speaker 2: have a pair of siphons, one for drawing in food

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Speaker 2: and water and another for expelling waste. Furthermore, they are

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Speaker 2: filter feeders and they have no need for any jaw

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Speaker 2: like mechanics. There's no chewing that takes place with the

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Speaker 2: two valve. They simply close, or in the case of

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Speaker 2: the giant clams, nearly close their shells for protection. The

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Speaker 2: giant clams can't actually close them all the way for

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Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. And here's another big kicker. They

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Speaker 2: close their shells exceedingly slowly. One of the main predators

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Speaker 2: that they're closing their shells for protection against are sea stars,

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Speaker 2: which you are quite a threat to a number of

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Speaker 2: coral reef dwelling organisms. But they themselves are also slow

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Speaker 2: moving creatures. So for this very specific encounter, the closing

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Speaker 2: of the shell is actually pretty fast, but it's as

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Speaker 2: fast as it needs to be, and it's not man

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Speaker 2: catching fast.

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Speaker 3: Yes, And the other thing you mentioned is they often

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Speaker 3: don't close their shells completely because you will still see

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Speaker 3: some of the flesh of the clam kind of protruding,

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Speaker 3: like they've got to both expel water and retract their

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Speaker 3: tissues inside in order.

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Speaker 2: To close exactly. Now, the varied colorization of the mantle

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Speaker 2: tissues on the giant clam is due to ariticide cells

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Speaker 2: that feed light to symbiotic single celled dinoflagelet algae or zooxanthellae.

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Speaker 2: And this is where we get into the really cool

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Speaker 2: example of symbiosis going on here. The clam acquires these

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Speaker 2: zooxanthellae via constant filter feeding in the water, it also

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Speaker 2: acquires basic basic plectonic organisms that it actually eats, and thus,

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Speaker 2: during the day the clam is going to open wide

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Speaker 2: and extend its mantle tissue to absorb the sunlight necessary

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Speaker 2: for the algae to conduct photosynthesis, and in return, the

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Speaker 2: algae produced sugars and proteins that the clam needs to

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Speaker 2: survive along with its more traditional filter diet, which it

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Speaker 2: requires less off. So the giant clam has a dual

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Speaker 2: feeding strategy and this is thought to have evolved some

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Speaker 2: sixty four million years ago.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, two different ways of eating. It is photosynthesizing with

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Speaker 3: the help of these organized that it has absorbed and

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Speaker 3: taken into itself. And then it's also filter feeding. It's

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Speaker 3: sucking through water and filtering out little bits that it

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Speaker 3: can eat.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that's that's one of the interesting like

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Speaker 2: observations you can make as you like snorkel over them.

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Speaker 2: Is like that mantle tissue is like it really seems engorged,

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Speaker 2: uh and and very out there because because it is,

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Speaker 2: it is, you know, collecting sunlight, and yeah, so fascinating

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Speaker 2: that it has this dual feeding strategy. The giant clam

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Speaker 2: also boasts thousands of pinhole eye spots along the mantle's

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Speaker 2: edge that allowed to detect changes in light, not only

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Speaker 2: the cycles of night and day, but also tailtale shadows

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Speaker 2: of approaching predators. And so this gets into you know,

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Speaker 2: the observation that I had as I was snorkeling over again,

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Speaker 2: the smaller of the giants, they would sometimes like tense

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Speaker 2: up a little bit. They wouldn't close all the way,

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Speaker 2: but there would be like a visual like rippling or

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Speaker 2: movement of the mantle tissue and even the valves. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've seen video of the same thing happening.

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Speaker 3: If you say, you move your hand over the top

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Speaker 3: of one and cast a shadow over it, sometimes it

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Speaker 3: will kind of tense and partially close.

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Speaker 2: Which, again the logical mind knows that, you know, it

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Speaker 2: is just responding to the presence of another organism, which

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Speaker 2: may or may not be something that is a threat

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Speaker 2: to it. But you also can't help but illogically read

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Speaker 2: it as like little mouths that are kind of going

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Speaker 2: at you, you know. So again, I think it's almost

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Speaker 2: impossible not to read them on additional levels as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean I think the way to think

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Speaker 3: of it is that what you're seeing there is a

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Speaker 3: retracting impulse, not a biting.

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Speaker 2: Impulse, exactly. Yeah, it is a retracting not a biting

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Speaker 2: Because yeah, I think the other way we tend to,

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Speaker 2: you know, artificially think about them, and certainly in like

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Speaker 2: modern looney tune sense, is to think of them as

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Speaker 2: a bear trap. Yes, and we'll turn to some actual

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Speaker 2: examples from twentieth century cinema that depicts them essentially as

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Speaker 2: a bear trap just waiting down there for divers to

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Speaker 2: pass through it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, before we get to twentieth century cinema, there are

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Speaker 3: older stories of giant clams. As you know various forms

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Speaker 3: of monsters or man killers. The giant clam has appeared

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Speaker 3: in some myths and legends of various people's of the

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Speaker 3: Pacific Islands, sometimes as a benign creature, but sometimes as

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Speaker 3: a dangerous or monstrous creature. One interesting example I found

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Speaker 3: is in a to Amotuan version of the story of

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Speaker 3: the Polynesian hero Rata. I can't remember if Rata's come

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Speaker 3: up on the show before, but Rata is basically a

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Speaker 3: culture hero that you will find throughout Polynesian storytelling and

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Speaker 3: lots of different Pacific Island cultures. There are Rata stories

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Speaker 3: among the Maori, among Tahitians, to Emotuans, and others, sometimes

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Speaker 3: with a different name a slightly different name in different regions.

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Speaker 3: The Rata stories differ in many details, but the most

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Speaker 3: common elements are that he is a young, brave, resourceful

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Speaker 3: hero who has to go on a dangerous quest to

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Speaker 3: avenge the death of his father or to avenge some

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Speaker 3: other kind of crime against his family, and in doing

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Speaker 3: so he has to build a mighty canoe, which involves

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Speaker 3: felling a tree protected by spirits or magical beings of

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Speaker 3: the forest. Sometimes in older English sources these beings are

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Speaker 3: translated as elves or goblins. More recent sources, I think,

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Speaker 3: will call them things like forest spirits or something. But

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Speaker 3: once in this great canoe that he has made, Rada

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Speaker 3: has to go on a journey, sometimes with companions, to

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Speaker 3: avenge his family or avenge his father, and battle terrifying

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Speaker 3: monsters along the way. And so in one version of

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Speaker 3: the Rada journey, I found one of those monsters he

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Speaker 3: fights is a giant clam.

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Speaker 2: So this is a.

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Speaker 3: Telling of a version found among the Tuamotuan people of

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Speaker 3: the Tuamotu Islands and of Tahiti, told by a local

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Speaker 3: scholar named Taroi to a Missus Walker, and compiled into

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Speaker 3: a book called Ancient Tahiti by the British Tahitian folkloristan

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Speaker 3: scholar Tearia Henry, who lived eighteen forty seven to nineteen fifteen.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to read the excerpt of the text,

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Speaker 3: and of course I have to apologize in advance for

348
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Speaker 3: any mispronunciations.

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Speaker 2: I'll do my best.

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Speaker 3: Here they were sailing on their course when the great

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Speaker 3: au or swordfish came into sight, and Rata mistook it

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Speaker 3: for land. But Tava said it was not land, but

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Speaker 3: another foe. So Rada stood prepared again for battle, and

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Speaker 3: when the monster approached the the canoe, intending to pierce it,

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Speaker 3: he killed it with his spear and presented the body

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Speaker 3: to the elves as before. Thus that demon was exterminated

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Speaker 3: and his flesh eaten by all. They sailed on, and

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Speaker 3: they met the great Urua, the Kavala fish, which looked

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Speaker 3: like land, but Tava told Rada it was the Kavala fish,

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Speaker 3: sent by King Puna to kill him. The fish darted

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Speaker 3: forward to carry away Rada, but he stood ready, and

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Speaker 3: as soon as it approached him, he thrust his spear

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Speaker 3: into its throat and killed it, and it was also

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Speaker 3: eaten by all. Next they met the great Pahua Tutahi,

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Speaker 3: a giant clam which appeared like a mountain looming up

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Speaker 3: from the sea. But Tava said, it is not land.

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Speaker 3: It is the giant clam, and Rada prepared for the

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Speaker 3: inevitable encounter. As his vessel was being drawn up into it.

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Speaker 3: The clam had opened its great valves and was sucking

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Speaker 3: in the waves upon which the canoe. Tua Rata was sailing.

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Speaker 3: Stood at the bow with his spear, and as soon

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Speaker 3: as they reached the center of the clam, he pierced

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Speaker 3: it through its vital part, severing its flesh from the

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Speaker 3: shell so that it could not close upon him. He

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Speaker 3: presented the clam to his spirit company to annihilate, and

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00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:17,680
Speaker 3: as soon as the canoe was safely away, the dead

377
00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:23,160
Speaker 3: clam sank into the deep sea. So several interesting things

378
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 3: here in the story. It sounds like he's talking about

379
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Speaker 3: cutting the adductor muscle, which is something we see later

380
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:33,480
Speaker 3: when people are talking about how to fight this clam.

381
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:36,679
Speaker 3: In this case, it says that Rada, you know, he

382
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,280
Speaker 3: stabbed it at its vital part with the spear. Severing

383
00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:41,879
Speaker 3: its flesh from the shell makes it sound, and that

384
00:21:41,920 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 3: prevented the shell from closing. Right, So it sounds like

385
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,440
Speaker 3: he is saying he attacked. He attacked the adductor muscle,

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00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:52,239
Speaker 3: which the clam uses to close the shell. Another thing

387
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Speaker 3: I want to note here is that I think there

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Speaker 3: could be a temptation to take a story like this

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Speaker 3: as evidence that the storyteller or the storyteller's audience would

390
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Speaker 3: be expected to believe that giant clams are actually dangerous,

391
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Speaker 3: that you know, they will come in eat your boat

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Speaker 3: or something. But I'm not sure that's actually right. In

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Speaker 3: this telling, the giant clam is not only a giant clam,

394
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Speaker 3: as in a tridacta geigis. It is a giant giant

395
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Speaker 3: clam described as looming over the sea like a mountain

396
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Speaker 3: and capable of swallowing an entire canoe. So to me,

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Speaker 3: that doesn't necessarily mean that the teller of the story

398
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:36,639
Speaker 3: wanted to you to get the idea that a regular

399
00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:41,640
Speaker 3: sized giant clam poses a threat to human beings, though

400
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 3: that belief does appear to be common enough around the

401
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:47,120
Speaker 3: world at different times. Maybe you can't rule it out either.

402
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:50,119
Speaker 3: But it might well be that the clam in this

403
00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 3: story is only understood as threatening because it is supernatural

404
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 3: and monstrous and leviathan sized, not because regular giant clams

405
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 3: are a threat. After all, the very next monster that

406
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 3: ratafights in the story is a terrible demon bird that

407
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,239
Speaker 3: carried away Rada's parents and swallowed his father's head, and

408
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,480
Speaker 3: this is presumably not an indication of what the storyteller

409
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 3: thought about the offensive capabilities of regular sea birds. So

410
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 3: I don't know that we can actually draw from this

411
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,359
Speaker 3: story a belief that giant clams would hurt you. It's

412
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 3: just like, this is a monster giant clam. It might

413
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 3: be no different than when we have Knight of aleipis

414
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Speaker 3: a movie about monster bunnies.

415
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,640
Speaker 2: Right, if if a bunny was that big, it would

416
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:36,919
Speaker 2: it would be a threat to us just based on

417
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 2: its mass, similar to you know, we know that our

418
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:43,879
Speaker 2: housecat is not actually a threat to our life in

419
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 2: a direct sense, but we can certainly engage in fantasies

420
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 2: where it is enlarged or we are shrunken, and then

421
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 2: that changes everything. Right, if a giant clam were supernaturally

422
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 2: giant enough, it could it could filter feed us exactly.

423
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to be filter fed or filter eaten.

424
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Speaker 2: Now, why was this monster's flesh not eaten by all? Though?

425
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 2: That seems like a missed opportunity.

426
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 3: That's a really good question. I don't know the answer.

427
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 3: And anybody out there listening who's a scholar of toomotu

428
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 3: and folklore who knows more about the Rata hero cycle, Like,

429
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 3: what do you have an idea? Why was the clam

430
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 3: not eaten like the other fish were?

431
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 2: I like a story where the people eat the monster

432
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 2: we've encountered these sorts of stories before, and they seem

433
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 2: very practical. I mean, sometimes the monster's body is poisonous

434
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: by nature, and therefore, you know, it is left alone.

435
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 2: But I like a story where they're like, okay, let's

436
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 2: make use of this flesh.

437
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 3: And it's not just the hero. It's actually kind of heartwarming.

438
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 3: The hero kills the monster and then takes it back

439
00:24:43,359 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 3: and it's eaten by all.

440
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. And speaking of giant clams, I'll also

441
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: refer listeners back to our episodes on the Fata Morgana,

442
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:58,640
Speaker 2: this being a mirage, an optical illusion that is seen

443
00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 2: at sea, which I did get to see an example

444
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 2: of when I was in Indonesia. In Indonesia, but we

445
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 2: discussed the Chinese myths concerning the shin or chin, which

446
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 2: is a kind of giant clam, a giant giant clam,

447
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 2: to be sure, a supernaturally giant clam. And this one too,

448
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: kind of emerges from the water like a mountain, but

449
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 2: it also expels a fantastic phantasmagorical island, you know, that

450
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,719
Speaker 2: throws sailors off and people sail towards it and then

451
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 2: they realize too late that this was not a real place.

452
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 2: At all, but just an illusion cast up by this giant,

453
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 2: this giant bivalve in the water. Yeah, but I don't

454
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 2: believe it ever, you know, latched on or ate anybody.

455
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:48,160
Speaker 2: So I kind of skipped over it otherwise for this episode. Yeah. Now,

456
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 2: coming back to modern myths of giant clams eating people,

457
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 2: I want to read an excerpt from Charles Frederick Holder.

458
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 2: He was an American naturalist and conservations and he had

459
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,719
Speaker 2: a book in eighteen eighty five title Elements of Zoology,

460
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: and this is time to understand otherwise for the time period,

461
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 2: a very well regarded work. So this is again not

462
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 2: an example of like outrageous fiction. It is not an

463
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 2: example of mythology or folklore, just you know, an attempt

464
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 2: to present biological facts about the natural world. And in

465
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 2: it he writes, quote, so powerful are they that large

466
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 2: sharks and rays that have accidentally crossed them have been

467
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 2: seized and held. That already gives us a lot to play.

468
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 2: First of all, I've crossed them, I think just means

469
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 2: has come close to them. I don't think this is

470
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 2: like a Vendetta situation he's describing here, right. He goes

471
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 2: on to state that the tradacna always harbors within its

472
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 2: shell several crabs. I actually couldn't find out out much

473
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 2: about this other than to say that, yeah, you will

474
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 2: find lots of animals living around and even among the

475
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 2: valves of a clam like this. And then he also

476
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 2: points out that the bisis this is the substance that

477
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 2: like sticks. The clam to the rock is quote so

478
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 2: large that it can only be cut with a hatchet.

479
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 2: And then he goes on to point out that eight

480
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 2: species are known. So still the idea that the clam

481
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 2: will latch on to creatures in its vicinity, including sharks

482
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 2: and rays, which, as we've discussed, are very agile creatures

483
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 2: that are not certain. I mean, it's one thing to

484
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 2: even make the claim, well that a flimsy human snorkeler

485
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,120
Speaker 2: or diver might get trapped by one of these things,

486
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 2: but it's quite another to imagine a shark or a

487
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 2: ray being grabbed by something like this.

488
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's not going to stop you from telling

489
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,639
Speaker 3: a good story. I mean, so, there are lots of

490
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 3: perpetuators of the myth of the killer clam. In the

491
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,959
Speaker 3: twentieth century, it came across many many things here that

492
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 3: we can discuss. One great example of the idea that

493
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 3: giant clams weregerous appears in a very short article that

494
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 3: was reprinted throughout, you know, the publishing world, originally in

495
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 3: the magazine Popular Mechanics in May nineteen twenty four. This

496
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:15,719
Speaker 3: was volume forty one, number five. I saw a vague

497
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,399
Speaker 3: reference to this in another article and I had to

498
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 3: go dig up the original text, and I'm glad I did,

499
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 3: by the way, because this entire issue of Popular Mechanics

500
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 3: is hilarious. This is sort of a digression from the clams.

501
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 3: But I have to discuss a few highlights from this

502
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty four pop mac one headline tear gas in

503
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 3: police clubs to foil bandits. What The article claims that

504
00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 3: it is impossible to remain within ten feet after the

505
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 3: gas is released. So it says, you know, you hit

506
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 3: the bandit with your mace or billy and it releases

507
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 3: the tear gas. And I was like, what about the

508
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 3: person hitting with it? I guess they have to be

509
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 3: wearing a gas.

510
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 2: They just have to be gas masked up from the

511
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 2: get going.

512
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 3: What it's in the club? That was inside the club?

513
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 2: Uh.

514
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 3: The other thing is the headline baking as cure for

515
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 3: dog ills is tried in Germany and Rob here's an

516
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 3: illustration for you to look at. Well, not a photo

517
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 3: of a guy who's got a dog, and it's just

518
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 3: labeled dog being baked in gas. Of Now, I have

519
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 3: to c it's not saying that you bake it at

520
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 3: like cooking temperatures. I think it's just like kind of

521
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: like a steam bath. It's like very warm in there.

522
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 2: Like a cartoon steam bath where you would have a

523
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 2: cartoon character get in and only their head sticking out.

524
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 2: That's exactly what they're doing to this dog. That headline

525
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: really is a roller coaster because when I first read it,

526
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,240
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, well, that's kind of nice. You're

527
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 2: baking for the dog, you're making little cookies or you know,

528
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 2: little treats. But no, this dude has a metal contraption

529
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 2: that this dog's body is stuck in.

530
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 3: So this poor dog's just looking like I'm very hot.

531
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 2: Yeah.

532
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 3: Another one. Here's the headline. Forty pound cigar is valued

533
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 3: at seventy five dollars what is said to be one

534
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 3: of the largest cigars ever made. One of the largest

535
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 3: was shown at an Eastern Tobacco exposition and it goes

536
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 3: on to, yeah, not really say anything else except that

537
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: it's valued at seventy five dollars. It does not answer

538
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 3: the question did anybody smoke it?

539
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 2: And it's so weird looking at these because my grandfather

540
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 2: in the I guess this is in the eighties and nineties,

541
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: he always had he had always had copies of Popular

542
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 2: Mechanics and Popular Science sitting around and I would look

543
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,680
Speaker 2: through them as a kid, and you know, these felt

544
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 2: like they were accurately depicting the future. There are always

545
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 2: articles about, you know, new gadgets, new upcoming technologies. So

546
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 2: it's quite a trip to explore these these previous stories

547
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 2: in Popular Mechanics.

548
00:30:56,360 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 3: Skeptical editorial standards might have been improving as the decades

549
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 3: went on. Maybe anyway, onto clams. So in this wacky

550
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 3: Popular Mechanics, there's one article titled Giant clams trap sea

551
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 3: divers in Grip of Shells. It's a very short article,

552
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 3: so I can read it in full. It says shells

553
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 3: of huge clams found off the coast of Papua often

554
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 3: weigh more than four hundred pounds. Divers who accidentally step

555
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 3: into the open lips of the monsters are not infrequently

556
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 3: held with such force that they cannot release themselves and

557
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 3: are drowned. The shells closed with such force that they

558
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 3: serve as gigantic traps. That's the whole article, except for

559
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 3: there's a photo of a giant clam, and we see

560
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 3: the characteristic shell with the with the wavy line of

561
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 3: the mouth, and the caption is giant clam and coral

562
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 3: reef off New Guinea, powerful crushing lips, partly open.

563
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 2: The interesting thing here is, though it's described as partly open,

564
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 2: this is actually probably a situation where they're as closed

565
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 2: as they are going to get. Yes, And they're describing

566
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 2: giant clams, by the way, in exactly the area that

567
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 2: I was snorkling in.

568
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 3: Oh that's funny.

569
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 2: Now.

570
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,479
Speaker 3: The text of this popular mechanics article seems to have

571
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 3: been reproduced in newspapers and other publications in the nineteen twenties,

572
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 3: so it seems kind of like this story really got

573
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 3: around in the following decades, including in various bits of

574
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 3: pop culture. This exact clam trap scenario is depicted in

575
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 3: a scene from a nineteen forty eight adventure film called

576
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 3: Wake of the Red Witch starring John Wayne himself and

577
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 3: Gail Russell rob I put in a link for you

578
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 3: to look at the scene if you want. It's actually,

579
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's not that remarkable as a scene,

580
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 3: and it's really hard to see what's going on in

581
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 3: the underwater photography. It's very murky. Basically, the movie is

582
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 3: a revenge story about this deadly feud over a woman

583
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 3: between a bitter ship captain played by John Wayne and

584
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 3: a wealthy shipping company owner played by Luther Adler. I

585
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 3: haven't seen the movie in full, but yeah, I found

586
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 3: a clip of this clam scene. Basically, a kid goes diving.

587
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 3: He accidentally sticks his leg into a tritachna clamshell. The

588
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 3: shell slams shut and traps him by the ankle, and

589
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: then John Wayne has to dive down and do battle

590
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 3: with the clam to get it to release the kid.

591
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 3: He succeeds by with the kid's foot still inside the shell.

592
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 3: By the way, by John Wayne, he stabs into the

593
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 3: gap in the clam's shell with some kind of spear

594
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 3: almost looks like a glave, and I was like, he's

595
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 3: gonna stab the foot, but the kid's okay.

596
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 2: This shell in this movie, by the way, just it

597
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: looks like a giant quarium clam. You know the kind

598
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: of little clamshell that opens and closes in your standard

599
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 2: a quar Yeah, it's like bubbles. Yeah, it looks like

600
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: it's made out of plastic or something like plastic. And

601
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 2: also like no visible or at least I didn't see

602
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 2: any visible mantle tissue either.

603
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 3: Another great example I found from popular our culture is

604
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 3: Superman versus giant clam. There are actually several instances of this.

605
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: The theme that is usually emphasized is like, wow, Superman

606
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 3: is so strong he can even pry apart the jaws

607
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 3: of the killer clam. That would take a mightiness born

608
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 3: only of his Kryptonian blood interacting with our yellow sun.

609
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 3: So the main example I came across is that Superman

610
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 3: fights giant clams in one arc of the Adventures of

611
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 3: Superman radio serial. This was a I think it was

612
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 3: a six episode series called The Curse of dead Man's

613
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 3: Island which ran from September to October nineteen forty and

614
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 3: in this encounter, they're on a mysterious island and Jimmy

615
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 3: Olsen and another character are swimming to shore after their

616
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 3: motor boat has been wrecked, and they get attacked by

617
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 3: a swarm of fast moving giant clams. Yeah, these clams

618
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 3: they not only clamp down and trap you, they actively

619
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 3: chase you, is what it sounds like. Don't remember the

620
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 3: exact wording, but it's like they're coming right for us.

621
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 2: They're like wind up chattery teeth.

622
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 3: Can we get a can we get a sample of

623
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 3: this jjuting.

624
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: The waters clear?

625
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 3: I've got to work fast before I would drown.

626
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: Wally shells apart and fleet these things are powerful.

627
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 3: Oh wow, only the Man of Steel has hands strong

628
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 3: enough to wrench apart the deadly molluscian grip. And I

629
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 3: love how you can hear Superman like grunting and groaning

630
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 3: and saying.

631
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:31,240
Speaker 2: Great Scott.

632
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 3: These things are powerful. And then there are also some

633
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 3: some visual like Superman comics where he has to fight

634
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 3: a giant clam. There's one. I actually was not able

635
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,840
Speaker 3: to figure out what issue this is from, so I

636
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 3: can't say, but I found it just like a clip

637
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 3: on Google image searches, where it looks like it's a

638
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 3: silver age Superman who's having to he gets his own

639
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 3: foot stuck in a giant clam's mouth and he has

640
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 3: to like shoot it with his eye lasers.

641
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 2: And this is another example of the comic book giant

642
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: clam is more horizontal, yeah, positioning as opposed to vertical. Yeah,

643
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 2: you mentioned that film from nineteen forty eight. I ran

644
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 2: across another film from nineteen forty eight that also features

645
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 2: pretty much the same giant clam gag, and that's the

646
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 2: film sixteen Fathoms Deep. This one starred Lloyd Bridges as

647
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: well as Lawn Cheney Jr.

648
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 3: This one has a lot of narration. I don't know

649
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 3: who's narrating, but I watched the scene you sent me,

650
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:30,280
Speaker 3: and like, it's the exact same thing. A kid goes swimming,

651
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 3: clam bites his leg, somebody has to swim down and

652
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,959
Speaker 3: rescue him, though it looks a lot easier this time.

653
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 3: The person who swims down and rescues the kid and

654
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 3: the clam just kind of pulls him out.

655
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just goes down and negotiates the situation. That's

656
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:53,720
Speaker 2: right now.

657
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 3: All this twentieth century killer clam stuff, when you look

658
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 3: into it, it's not like really claims based on anything specific.

659
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 3: There are claims that are supposed to be authentic, but

660
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 3: they're just vague generalizations. And then there's also pop culture.

661
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 3: But are there any actual, specific, first hand accounts of

662
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 3: giant clam attacks in the twentieth century. There's one main one,

663
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: though it will come with some major caveats. So a

664
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 3: lot of these stories seem to trace back to a

665
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 3: figure named Wilburn Dowell Cobb, an American who wrote an

666
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 3: article called the Pearl of a Llah in the November

667
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty nine edition of Natural History magazine. Cobb was

668
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 3: at the time he wrote this article the owner of

669
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 3: a massive clam pearl. And I'm not fully up on

670
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 3: this distinction, but I know gemologists make some kind of

671
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 3: distinction between clam pearls and some other kind of pearls.

672
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 3: I'm to understand that this thing is huge enough to

673
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 3: be considered really, you know, notable and valuable, but that

674
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 3: generally clam pearls are not as prized as like the

675
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 3: iridescent kinds of pearls you might get from pearl oysters.

676
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 2: Right, that's my understanding as well. The basic the composition

677
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: is different.

678
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Cob was the owner of this gigantic clam pearl.

679
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 3: He originally called it the Pearl of Allah. He later

680
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 3: renamed it the Pearl of laod Zoo. Which at the

681
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 3: time this article was written, this pearl was advertised as

682
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 3: the largest pearl ever found in nature. Cobb claimed that

683
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 3: he acquired it as a gift from a pearl diving

684
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 3: family in the Philippine province of Palawan in nineteen thirty four,

685
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 3: and so his story goes like this again. After this,

686
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 3: I'm going to come back with some reasons for doubting this,

687
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 3: but this is what he says. He says that he

688
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 3: was visiting a small diac fishing village on an archaeological

689
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 3: expedition with some companions. Now, I was a little confused

690
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 3: about the terminal he was using to refer to the

691
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 3: people here, because from what I understand, the term Diek

692
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 3: is usually used to refer to the largest ethnic group

693
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 3: in Borneo, not to the people of Palawan. I'm not

694
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 3: sure what accounts for this, but anyway, he says, one

695
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 3: night he was awakened by a great commotion and it

696
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 3: seemed to be a funeral. Dirge Cobb's guide explained that

697
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 3: his own son, who was the village chief, bog Tong,

698
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 3: had organized a dive to collect conk shells, which the

699
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,720
Speaker 3: villagers planned to trade at market for some much needed

700
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 3: new fishing equipment. But after several dives, bog Tong realized

701
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:44,240
Speaker 3: one of his best divers, a man named Etim, was missing.

702
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 3: And then here I'm going to read from Cobb's article,

703
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 3: he writes quote, Suspecting a giant octopus, they unsheathed their

704
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,399
Speaker 3: knives and as one dove down in search of their

705
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:59,720
Speaker 3: missing comrade. On the fourth dive, they found Etem already dead.

706
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,840
Speaker 3: In his search for conk shells, he had failed to

707
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 3: see the giant tridacna clam, which was partly hidden by

708
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 3: coral rocks, its huge jaws held open ready to clamp

709
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:15,279
Speaker 3: shut with the strength of a bear trap. Attim accidentally

710
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 3: got his hand between the shells, which snapped shut, and

711
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 3: thus he met his death. With the aid of ropes,

712
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 3: the men hoisted their dead comrade and his deep sea

713
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 3: murderer into one of their canoes.

714
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 2: Deep sea murder. Again, these are generally found in coral

715
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 2: reef environments.

716
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:38,720
Speaker 3: Right, So Cobb claims that this clam, which was brought ashore,

717
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 3: was later revealed to contain a gigantic pearl, and it

718
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: was The pearl was first claimed by a local Muslim chieftain,

719
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 3: but then given to Cob as a gift after Cob

720
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:54,760
Speaker 3: managed to save the chief's son from a deadly illness. Again,

721
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 3: this is all his own account, so there is at

722
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 3: least a first hand account of a giant clam snapping

723
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 3: down on somebody and drowning them, and the pearl itself

724
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,479
Speaker 3: is actually real, but the story of where it came

725
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 3: from that has met with intense scrutiny from later reviewers.

726
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,520
Speaker 3: I didn't have time to chase down all of the

727
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 3: different investigations of this. There have been several, but it

728
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 3: seems that multiple later articles point out serious reasons for

729
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,240
Speaker 3: doubting the story, including the fact that Cobb changed major

730
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 3: details of the story over time. There was no corroborating

731
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,480
Speaker 3: evidence or documentation of this from the Philippines, and Frankly,

732
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 3: while well this is just subjective and doesn't really bear

733
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 3: any evidential weight, I have to say just because I

734
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,399
Speaker 3: noticed it myself. If you read Cobb's article, it has

735
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 3: a fabulous texture in the pros it reads like a

736
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 3: guy making up a story to make himself sound cool.

737
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds a little carney. It sounds very much

738
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 2: like someone selling the lore of the thing he is

739
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:03,280
Speaker 2: literally selling.

740
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to read more, about this. There's

741
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 3: an article in the Atlantic called The Pearl of Laosu

742
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 3: by Michael LaPoint from twenty eighteen, and that gets into

743
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:15,760
Speaker 3: the whole history of this pearl and also what happened

744
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 3: to it, because there was also some ownership controversy after Cobb.

745
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 3: Another commonly repeated claim when people are writing about this

746
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 3: idea that giant clams will attack people or clamp onto

747
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 3: them and trap them underwater is the claim that US

748
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 3: Navy diving manuals of the twentieth century portrayed the grip

749
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 3: of the giant clam as one of the perils of

750
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 3: working on the bottom. For example, there's an article that

751
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 3: I think you referred me to rob that was in

752
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 3: Atlas Obscura. It's about giant clams, but it's actually it's

753
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 3: an excerpt from a book by an author named Cynthia Barnett.

754
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 3: The book came out in twenty twenty two and it's

755
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 3: called The Sound of the Sea, Seashells and the Fate

756
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 3: of the Ocean. In this excerpt of the author rights quote,

757
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:06,399
Speaker 3: the stories captured the imagination of the US Navy during

758
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 3: World War Two, when soldiers fighting in the Pacific were

759
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 3: briefed on the man eating clams and large sharks known

760
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 3: to inhabit the reefs. The man eater myth was so

761
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 3: persistent that decades later, navy diving manuals still advised frogmen

762
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 3: how to free themselves if caught in the vice like

763
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 3: grip of a giant clam, by inserting a knife between

764
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 3: the valves and severing the animal's a ductor muscle.

765
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. I ran across this tidbit and a couple other

766
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 2: sources I was looking at as well. But again, but

767
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 2: in terms of finding the original material, I couldn't couldn't

768
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: really find anything.

769
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have no reason to doubt Barnett. I'm sure

770
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 3: it is out there somewhere, But unfortunately I wasted a

771
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 3: lot of time searching in vain for the primary text here.

772
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 3: I was looking through navy diving manuals of the forties, fifties,

773
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 3: and seventies, and I never found any references to clams.

774
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 3: In fact, I couldn't find anything at all really about

775
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 3: dealing with wildlife. The sections on dealing with hazards and

776
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 3: working on the bottom are highly concerned with various forms

777
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 3: of entrapment underwater, But it looks to me like the

778
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 3: most pressing concern is what's called fouling, which is when

779
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 3: the diver's lifeline or air hose gets caught or tangled

780
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 3: on something on the bottom, like rocks or wreckage, and

781
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 3: this is very dangerous because it prevents the diver from

782
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:32,760
Speaker 3: safely ascending. I found very little about the diver themself

783
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 3: being caught bodily, though in terms of threats to your

784
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:41,240
Speaker 3: own body orientation, there are concerns about getting knocked over

785
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 3: or tripping and falling on a dive because in this era,

786
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 3: divers would wear a heavy metal helmet applied at the surface,

787
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 3: kind of like what you see in BioShock, and you

788
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 3: had to remain upright during a dive or you could

789
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 3: risk the possibility of flooding the helmet, which was very,

790
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 3: very bad. So for divers of this period, the real

791
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 3: monster you have to fear is not a creature that

792
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 3: lives in the sea. It's hydrostatic pressure, yeah, pressure and

793
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 3: equipment failures. That's like the main thing to worry about.

794
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 3: So not only did I not find any references to clams,

795
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 3: it just seems like wildlife is like so far down

796
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 3: the list of concerns, like the thing that they're really

797
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 3: getting into the the diver's heads here has to do

798
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,720
Speaker 3: with with dealing with pressure and using your equipment properly.

799
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, yeah, pressure equipment issues, the threats posed

800
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 2: potentially by other boats if they're not aware of your presence,

801
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 2: things like that. Yeah, you know, to be clear, I mean,

802
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 2: there are various threats in the water posed by organisms,

803
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 2: but a certainly the giant clam doesn't really rank highly

804
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 2: among them. And I mean there's even a case to

805
00:45:56,640 --> 00:46:00,800
Speaker 2: be made this references here. I'll point outs in reef

806
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 2: environments and you know, when I was in reef environments

807
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 2: in raja Ampat, there are sharks around, but they were

808
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 2: not interested in us at all. So it does make

809
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 2: me wonder. Okay, if playing Devil's advocate, let's assume that

810
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 2: there actually was reference to this in US Navy dive

811
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 2: manuals of the time period. You could look at it

812
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 2: in one of two ways. Either, Okay, there this idea

813
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 2: was taken up that these organisms were potentially a threat

814
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 2: and therefore you needed some sort of a plan of

815
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 2: action should the threat arise. But maybe also a part

816
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 2: of it could have been Okay, we're training up a

817
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,239
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of landsmen here to go into

818
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: the water and do things for the Navy. They're going

819
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,399
Speaker 2: to have concerns about organisms in the water because they've

820
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 2: been watching movies or reading comic books or listening to

821
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 2: radio programs, and or we just have a natural aversion

822
00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:01,240
Speaker 2: to large, strange creatures in the water. Understandable. And maybe

823
00:47:01,280 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 2: part of that was like, Okay, there's no reason that

824
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 2: the giant clam is actually a threat. There's no reason

825
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 2: that even some of these sharks are necessarily a threat.

826
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 2: But we need to have give them a plan of

827
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:15,960
Speaker 2: action so they'll feel more at ease in the water

828
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 2: knowing that there is something they can do if this,

829
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 2: if this event were to transpire.

830
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, I wouldn't say, based on what

831
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 3: I was reading, that a giant clam would never be

832
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 3: a threat. But I would say that it doesn't appear

833
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 3: to me that the main threat would be that it

834
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,720
Speaker 3: would close upon you. It would be that you would

835
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 3: It would be the same threat as like a rock

836
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:40,120
Speaker 3: or a reef on the ground, which is fouling you

837
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,439
Speaker 3: would get your lines tangled on it.

838
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would. I would agree with that, treating

839
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:51,959
Speaker 2: it essentially like like any other large structure or rock

840
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 2: or piece of coral in the water.

841
00:47:54,200 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 3: So beyond all this, I checked around, and from what

842
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 3: I can tell, the killer clam story is universally agreed

843
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 3: among experts a marine biologists to be without merit. There

844
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 3: is no solid evidence anywhere of a single example of

845
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 3: a person ever being killed, seriously injured, or trapped by

846
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 3: a tridachna lam. Marine biology resources stress again and again that,

847
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 3: like you were saying earlier, Rob, the clamshell can close defensively,

848
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 3: but it tends to close slowly. It has to expel

849
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 3: water to do so, and it has to retract its

850
00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 3: own flesh, which tends to protrude out of the gap

851
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:35,879
Speaker 3: in the shell. So apart from Cobb's story, which there

852
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 3: are serious reasons for doubting, there's no documented account anywhere

853
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,280
Speaker 3: of a giant clam actually harming anyone.

854
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd really have to, like Homer sense in your

855
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 2: arm in there, Like Sarah, you just just holding on

856
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:51,640
Speaker 2: to the inside of the clam. You're just holding on

857
00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 2: to the mantle tissue, and you say, yes, actually that's

858
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 2: what I'm doing.

859
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:56,840
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, I guess the other thing to

860
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 3: say is that it has never actually happened that we

861
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 3: know about in any verifiable way. Is different from saying

862
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 3: it couldn't happen if you did something really stupid right

863
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 3: like I don't know, if you like, maybe if you

864
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 3: really like shoved a boot down in there and you

865
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 3: forced it to stay inside while the clam was closing,

866
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 3: and until the clam had closed around you, it might

867
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 3: be hard to get it back out.

868
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 2: I don't know, but that.

869
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 3: We have no examples that are verifiable that this has happened.

870
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 2: Don't try to be the first. I feel like you'd

871
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 2: really have to try. You'd really have to get in

872
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 2: there and really tempt fate and try to make this

873
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 2: happen for yourself. And you know, I guess there's one

874
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 2: way to go down in the history books, but surely

875
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:47,320
Speaker 2: there's a better option. You'd have to again, essentially frame

876
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,319
Speaker 2: a giant clam for murder, which I don't think is fair.

877
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 3: They don't need any more trouble there. I mean, they're

878
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 3: having a hard time, they take a long time to grow,

879
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:00,280
Speaker 3: they've been over harvested. Giant giant clams need a break.

880
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, leave them be, keep a respect respectful distance, but

881
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 2: by all means observe them if you get the chance.

882
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 2: Like I say, it was it beautiful and weird to

883
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 2: be in their presence. I can't stress both enough. Again,

884
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 2: their mantle tissue is beautiful, their size alone can be

885
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 2: quite a spectacle. But there is also something kind of weird,

886
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 2: because again we can't help but read them as analogs

887
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 2: of human physiology, and it's, you know, weird that they're

888
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 2: kind of like smiling up at us from the from

889
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 2: the seafloor.

890
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,879
Speaker 3: Smile back, yes, get out of their light.

891
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think that's going to do it

892
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 2: for this episode. But of course we'd love to hear

893
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 2: from everyone out there. We've heard in the past from

894
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 2: snorkelers and divers, you know, with lots of experience. So

895
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,440
Speaker 2: I know we have some snorkelers and divers out there

896
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 2: who have more experience with giant clams or clams in general,

897
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 2: and might want to chime in with their own expertise, observations,

898
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,240
Speaker 2: or you know lore that you've heard from maybe fellow

899
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 2: older divers and snorkelers about giant clams, whether it's pure

900
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 2: mythology or fact base. We'd love to hear about you,

901
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:12,839
Speaker 2: So write in just a reminder that stuff to Blow

902
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

903
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have short form

904
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 2: episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set us like

905
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 2: most serious concerns, to just talk about a weird film

906
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:23,320
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema.

907
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

908
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

909
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

910
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

911
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

912
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

913
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

914
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:51,800
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915
00:51:51,960 --> 00:52:11,920
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