![]() ![]() A female geoduck produces about 5 billion eggs in her century-long lifespan. ![]() In Alaska, sea otters and dogfish have proved capable of dislodging geoducks starfish also attack and feed on the exposed geoduck siphon. Adult geoducks have few natural predators, which may also contribute to their longevity. A geoduck sucks water containing plankton down through its long siphon, filters this for food and ejects its refuse out through a separate hole in the siphon. The oldest recorded specimen was 168 years old, but individuals usually live up to 140 years. Research to date does indicate their presence. Whether these microsporidium-like parasitic species were introduced by commercial farming is being studied by Sea Grant. There is a growing concern over the increase of parasites in the Puget Sound population of geoduck. The largest quantities have come from Golden Bay in the South Island where 100 tonnes were harvested in one year. Native to the west coast of Canada and the northwest coast of the United States (primarily Washington and British Columbia), these marine bivalve mollusks are the largest burrowing clams in the world, weighing in at an average of 0.7 kilograms ( 1 + 1⁄ 2 lb) at maturity, but specimens weighing over 7 kilograms (15 lb) and as much as 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) in length are not unheard of.Ī related species, Panopea zelandica, is found in New Zealand and has been harvested commercially since 1989. A group of geoducks is called a "bag".īetween 19, the scientific name of this clam was confused with that of an extinct clam, Panopea abrupta (Conrad, 1849), in scientific literature. It is sometimes known as a mud duck, king clam or, when translated literally from Chinese, an elephant-trunk clam ( Chinese: 象拔蚌 pinyin: xiàngbábàng Jyutping: zoeng6 bat6 pong). The name geoduck is derived from a Lushootseed ( Nisqually) word gʷídəq either a word composed of a first element of unknown meaning and əq meaning "genitals" (referring to the shape of the clam), or a phrase meaning "dig deep", or perhaps both, as a double entendre. Geoduck for sale at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo Ruesink and Rowell 2012 Brown and Thuesen 2011 Orensanz et al. Farming techniques are under scrutiny for their possible negative environmental impact (e.g. of Fisheries and Wildlife for illegal harvesting (Vedder 2011 Welch 2012). In the 1970s a commercial fishery for geoduck clams opened up and in recent decades a huge demand from Asian markets has developed.These clams are now farmed as well as harvested in the wild.The clams currently sell for huge sums of money, in China they fetch more than US$150/pound (US$330/kg Welch 2012) and now require policing by the Washington Dept. abrupta (Vadopalas 2010 Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife 2013). 2003).As adults they have very few predators other than humans.The common name is thought to be derived from the Nisqually Native American word gwídeq meaning "dig deep," and has multiple spellings likewise they have acquired multiple scientific synonyms through their complicated taxonomic history, including the often used P. The geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck), Panopea generosa, is a species of very large, edible, saltwater clam in the family Hiatellidae, native to the west coast of North America and especially abundant in the Pacific Northwest - Washington state and British Columbia.The geoduck is the largest species of burrowing clam in the world: the shell of the clam ranges from 15 cm (5.9in) to over 20 cm (7.9in) in length.In addition, its extremely long siphons, through which the underground clam draws in and expels marine water from above the substrate in order to filter feed on phytoplankton, can be more than 1 m (3.3 ft) in length, far to big to retract into the shell like other clams.They usually live subtidally, from the 0 tide line to depths of 110 m (360 ft) of water, and buried as deep as their siphons allow in mud, sand or silt in Puget Sound the tips of their siphons are only exposed at very low tides.Geoducks are also one of the longest-lived animals of any type, living up to 168 years (Bureau et al. ![]()
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