The Mystery of the 5 Foot Long Shipworm Just Got Stinkier
Published: 7 years ago
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How, though, could the giant shipworm so radically depart from its wood-eating cousins? A clue could be the giant mussels that call deep-sea vents home. In 2000, Distel discovered that a tiny variety of mussel—no bigger than a sesame seed—lives on the hydrogen sulfide that rotting wood produces, breaking down the compound with the help of symbiont bacteria. Long ago, a mussel like this may have sunk down to the hydrothermal vents, to find a bounty of hydrogen sulfide, growing enormous in the process.
Maybe the giant shipworm evolved in much the same manner. “If an ancient shipworm acquired sulfur-oxidizing symbionts, then they would have an environment, that contained both their typical diet of wood and hydrogen sulfide,” says Distel. “So, it acted as an evolutionary stepping stone, allowing them to make that transition from eating wood to living on hydrogen sulfide.”
And so a massive mollusk mystery suddenly becomes clear. And a little bit stinkier, I suppose.
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/mystery-5-foot-long-shipworm-just-got-stinkier/ Show more
Maybe the giant shipworm evolved in much the same manner. “If an ancient shipworm acquired sulfur-oxidizing symbionts, then they would have an environment, that contained both their typical diet of wood and hydrogen sulfide,” says Distel. “So, it acted as an evolutionary stepping stone, allowing them to make that transition from eating wood to living on hydrogen sulfide.”
And so a massive mollusk mystery suddenly becomes clear. And a little bit stinkier, I suppose.
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/mystery-5-foot-long-shipworm-just-got-stinkier/ Show more
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