Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV
The disco clam is surely the king of party animals. It's the only bivalve known to produce a controlled light show, creating a flashing strobe effect as it rolls up then unfurls a reflective lip.
Now Lindsey Dougherty and colleagues from University of California, Berkeley, are trying to uncover how and why these molluscs produce the display. It's visible whenever the clams are open in a bright area, exposing reflective cells on the edge of their mantle to light. But when Dougherty filmed the animals at night with an infrared camera, she found that they still rolled their reflective lip even though there was no light. "This means that there may be some purpose to the movement of the mantle which isn't seen in other closely related species," she says.
The clams mostly reflect blue light, which would be an advantage in the ocean because it travels much further and deeper than other wavelengths. But the question is how blue wavelengths are significant to organisms that perceive the light show. "Displays are only useful when the intended receiver has the photoreceptors and neural network necessary to process it," says Dougherty.
The researchers are now trying to determine the purpose of the display. Although clams are filter feeders, the light show might help lure additional prey. It could also be a way of warding off predators, although there is no proof that it's distasteful or toxic. It might also be a mating call used by females to attract juvenile males, causing them to settle nearby before they mass spawn. "We think the clams might be hermaphrodites, starting out as small males and maturing into large females, but we have yet to confirm this," says Dougherty.
The research was recently presented at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting in San Francisco.
If you enjoyed this post, watch flashing bacteria blink together or see a cuttlefish mimic its surroundings.
Video captures disco clams producing strobe light show
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Video captures disco clams producing strobe light show
