GIANT CLAM SHELL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21717, 5 February 1934, Page 12

GIANT CLAM SHELL

RECENT GIFT TO MUSEUM EXCEPTIONAL SPECIMEN A huge specimen of the giant clam shell, weighing 2621b., has recently been brought from the Gilbert Islands by the Triona and presented to the Auckland War Memorial Museum by Captain Johnstone. This is probably the largest specimen that has so far been seen in New Zealand. It is 2ft. 6in. wide and Ift. 6in. high.

When alive these massive creatures live almost concealed in the coral reefs and the natives keep a keen look-out for them, for, on being trodden on, they close up and there have been many cases of natives being held and drowned by the next high. tide. Actually the great teeth of the serrated edge do not quite close, but there is little chance for the unfortunate victim.

The animal itself weighs up to 2011b. and is much esteemed as food. The hard shell forms a valuable source of material for hard implements, especially in those islands where there is rio stone. From it a great variety of ornaments, tools and weapons are manufactured. Another use to which it is put is that of water tanks. Placed under the pandanus trees, it catches the water as it drips off them. Although the specimen in the museum is of exceptional size, there is a record of a pair used as a baptismal font in the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris. This pair is said to weigh 50011b. and at that weight can probably claim to be from the largest mollusc ever found.

There is also in the possession of the Auckland Museum a thick flat slab cut from a single giant clam shell and intricately carved in a fretwork representing rows of human figures. This piece of work is prehistoric and the natives in the island from which it came are to-day quite unable to produce such work. It could have been done only by laboriously working with thongs impregnated with sand and must have taken a great number of years to execute.