Ocean Genome Legacy || A Newly Discovered Clam Eats Rock, and No One Knows Why

Researchers from Northeastern’s Ocean Genome Legacy Center have discovered a new genus and species of shipworm burrowing into the bedrock of a river in the Philippines. The pale, blobby creature, they say in a paper published June 19, 2019, has evolved to devour a home in rocks and excrete sand. Their work is part of the Philippine Mollusk Symbiont project, a collaboration led by universities in the United States and the Philippines to simultaneously document the biodiversity of the islands and search for compounds that could be used in human medicine.