St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 4/Nature and Science/Mollusk
The King of Mollusks.
The king of mollusks lives in the Indian and South Pacific oceans. He attains to a weight of five hundred pounds, and the shell is of the bivalve kind, and the shape is about the same as that of our common fresh-water mussel. The gigantic Tridacna is the largest mollusk known to have lived on the earth since the Silurian Age. It is found on the bottom of the shallow parts of the ocean, and the large individuals have no longer the power to move about. They lie on one side, and all about them the corals build up until King Tridacna is sometimes found in a well-like hole in the coral formation. From the known rate of coral growth, the age of the mollusk can be approximately determined. Some are certainly more than one hundred years old, This king has a small domain, but in it he is in undoubted control. Pearl-divers have lost their lives by unknowingly stepping into the shell of a tridacna.
The huge shell Tridacna.
(Photographed by the side of a girl to show comparative size.)
Suppose the diver to be walking on the bottom of the sea, stumbling along in the dim light, and, in climbing over a mass of coral, placing his foot on the shell of the great mollusk. This is smooth and slimy; his foot slips into the opening between the valves, and Mr. King, being much alarmed, closes his shell with tremendous force. The diver, unable to drag the great weight, is held until drowned. His comrades go down to seek him, and thus we know the story.
If this mollusk were good to eat, a single tridacna would supply many great steaks, any one of which would fill the largest frying-pan. C. A. Hargrave.