We're going to park !!

         

(lively upbeat music) - The creature we are afteris right below the surface. Let me show you what I found. If you can see down inthere, that is the top ridge. What I want to do is (whistling) (dramatic upbeat music) Whoa! (dramatic upbeat music) Quite the adventure, to getout to location we're on today. I had to paddle out about amile and a half from the Marina here on the South Shore,just South of Boston. And now we're on foot because the water is waytoo shallow to paddle. 

           We're going to park the kayak just up here and try to anchor it soit doesn't float away. Hopefully the tide doesn't come back in before we get back to the kayak. That would be a bad day. I'd be swimming a mile back to home. Kayak all the way up, grab our backpack. And we are going to head off on the greatest clammingadventure, you've ever witnessed. Well, at least I hope. All right, here we go. The mouth of the estuary or salt marsh. You'll find a lot of theseplaces have different names and this is an intertidal zone. That means the tide'sgoing to go up and down. It's full of all kindsof different substrates like pretty much puresand, just like that. And if you just walk alittle further up here, it gets very organic and rooted. 

        Almost like a mossy mud. That's what's really coolabout this environment. There's a lot of different looks. And this differentsubstrate from spot to spot is also going to provide environments for a lot of different kinds of animals. But today in particular, we are looking for the soft shelled clam. (dramatic upbeat music) This is gonna be a littletricky to get down, oh boy! (sighing) Here we go into the adventure. Whoa, whoa. Here we go. Oh, yeah. (sighing) Oh, here's a crab. What do we have here? Look at this guy. Here we go. First creature of the trip. And this one is familiar,if you've already seen our Tidepool adventure in new England, which you recently released.

            And let's count themone, two, three, four, five spikes on each side of the eye. Pop quiz, what kind of crab is this? (playful upbeat music) If you guessed green crab,you are absolutely correct. That's a good sign, healthyenvironment, lots of life. Now this is an invasive predatory crab. Not necessarily the bestthing for these environments but they are established at this point. And anytime you're looking for animals and you see other creatures,that's a very good sign. I'm gonna let this crap go. And we're gonna talk about this. This is no longer a livingbivalve, but it was recently. This is the Atlanticversion of a razor clam. They're also called jackknife clams. These are some of the fastest bivalves that live in this environment. 

             As we get more into this estuary, you'll see there's going to be more and more shell debris around because there are a lot of things out here in this environmentthat eat these bivalves. This place in particularhas a high concentration of soft shell clams,today's target species. And I can see what we'relooking for just ahead of us. (lively upbeat music) (sighing) All right, everybody. We finally made it. We had a long paddle out. Had a long hike into this estuary. But the creature we're after is right below the surface in front of us. Now, the reason I knowthis is because of those. See all those littleholes called a clam show. 

           And it's basically a telltale sign that if there's a hole inthe surface of the sand it's showing that there's a clam that lives just below the surface. So first things first, let me get set up, getall the cameras situated. And then I'll put on some gloves. We'll start digging and I'm gonna show you some pretty cool things about some clams you've probably never seen before. Here we go. The clams we've been searching for today that we've traveled miles to find are just a few inches below the surface.

         Now there's no way to find these clams without getting a little bit dirty. So we're just gonna embrace it. I'm using gloves because I'mworried about getting sliced by all the shells andfragments that are in the soil. You can see some of the clam shows here. There's probably dozensof clams down in the soil. All right, here we go. I'm gonna dig in. Now you want to dig carefully. They're called softshell clams for a reason. These clams have a very brittle shell. And if you're not careful, youcan crack them quite easily. 

          And what I'm feeling for are the ridges of the side of the clam because these clams arevertical in the soil. Meaning they lay on their side, not flat like the hard shell clams. I got one. Okay, first claim of the day. This is exciting. I'm just gonna move this back. Here we go, I'm gonna wiggle it out. Oh, there it is! Our first soft shell clam. Look at that one. Oh, it's squirting everywhere. They actually are calledsquirting clams or spraying clams. Because they do squirtwater out just like that. But that's a really good one to look at. We're gonna put that off to the side. Oh, okay. Got another one. Let me show you what I found. I'm gonna get the other camera. Hope you can see that in there. 

             That is the top ridge of a clam. What I wanna do is this (whistling) take it out just like that. Check that out. That is a nice soft shell clam. Let's see if we can find one more. You can see here, that'swhy I'm wearing gloves. You have all these fragmentsof shells down in the soil. Let's see if we can find one more. Oh yeah, here we go. Here we go. Oh yeah, that's a good one. I think that's gonna do itfor the finding of clams. We're gonna leave this open right now cause we're gonna putall the clams back in. 

            But I'm gonna get out a container, fill it with some clear water, clean off these clams so wecan take a super close look at why this is such a bizarre creature. Alright, there we go. Let's first talk aboutthe shell of these clams. Now these shells are very brittle. And like I said, whenwe were digging it up we had to be super carefulas to not crack the shell. If the shell is cracked the clam can actually get sick and die. We would not want that to happen. These shells are actuallymade out of calcium carbonate produced by the organism itself from the things that it eats. They'll build layer after layer of shell. 

        Will grow up to a sizeof four inches in length. They are called bivalvesbecause they have two shells and that's why it getsnamed bi, meaning two. And this clam in particular is interesting because it can not close all the way. A lot of other mollusks and bivalves can actually close up intheir shells all the way. They're always looking kind of half open. Don't worry, they're not sick. That's exactly how they're supposed to be. You see that littlenubbin, that is a siphon. And the siphon has two tubes. And believe it or not, this siphon can stick upto the surface 8-12 inches. But right now the clam is taking cover. It's very bright out, so it's gonna be as tucked in as it can. 

            When the tide comes back in and this clan is back in the soil it will put that siphon allthe way up to the surface. And that's, what's makingall these clam shows. That's what gave away the clams location to us for this adventure. Now what's cool about thesiphon is it has two tubes. One for taking in water andone for expelling water. These clams are filter feeders. So when they're drawing in water through one side of the siphon, they're actually taking that water across their gills to absorb the oxygen. And then all the food that they're eating which is that microscopicalgae in the water goes to their mouth and then it goes all the way through the digestive system. And these clams, believe it or not, can filter up to 50 liters of water a day. 

            And for a little creature like that, that's pretty impressive. Pretty much all daylong when there's water covering where they live, they're like a vacuum cleaner just drinking up and filtering that water. Pretty cool. Now the other thing that Ifind particularly interesting about these clams is their life cycle. They don't start liferight here in the soil. They actually start as planktonic larva. The male and female clamswill spray their gametes and their eggs into the watercolumn, through their siphons. And they will float out to sea. Now, when those eggs hatch forthe first few weeks of life these clams are actually freeswimming organisms or larva. And when they grow big enoughand become heavy enough they will actually sink to the bottom. 

           They will fix themselves togrow even larger by using byssal which is that spiderweb like strandy. Now here's the really interesting part and the one that really impresses me, these clams know whenthey grow large enough release that byssal and theywill actually ride the tide back into the estuaries. And once they find the perfect spot with the right kind of soil, they will use their footand they will dig down. And once they're there, they will spend their entirerest of their existence right in that place, whichcould be up to 12 years. And I think that life cycle has to be one of themost impressive things that I learned whenresearching this bivalve. 

              And I'm happy that I finallygot to share with you today and to show you thesereally cool and bizarre soft shell clams. Well that about does it for us. Let's put these clams back and head home. I'm Mark Vins. Be brave. Stay wild. We'll see you on the next adventure. All right, back you go. (upbeat lively music) - [Narrator] If youenjoyed this adventure, make sure to check out thetime we explored the West Coast for a whole new cast of spikyand slimy tide pool creatures. (lively upbeat music)