Ship worms – a storm of wooden ships. They can turn a huge ship in a sieve, written by our colleagues from #Esmeralda OK.
Worms is a misnomer, because we are dealing with bivalves. However, the sink they are not for protection from enemies, and for drilling holes in wood.
To ward off the worm from the ships, the wooden hull painted with poisonous paint or impregnate with creosote. However, to find a wooden ship, it is very hard. The pier also make the stone more. It turns out that there are worms who are not afraid of a shortage of wooden structures.
In the Philippines with limestone banks of the river Abacan, scientists have discovered a new species of worm that specializes on the rocks. Newly opened clam is very different from the usual ship worm.
The usual ship, the worm digests the tree, getting out the necessary for life organics. In this difficult matter he helps the bacteria’s own enzymes to digest the cellulose of the ship-worms do not produce.
But the Philippine worms is necessary to extract the organic matter from the surrounding water (also without the help of bacteria), because to digest the stone useless. Why do they bite? Maybe for the sake of safe housing?
I wonder if they came to taste the concrete of the court? Not limestone, but you never know… well, never mind, the concrete ships are still a big exotic than wood. Here metal and plastic materials more promising, Perhaps nature is already working on this challenge.
granitescience
What do you think?