Art:Great White Clam

This article is an entry in the Piratical Guide to Oceanic Life muse game.

The Great White Clam Tridacna Titan

One of the true terrors of the deep, the Giant Clam is as large as a galleon, and far more dangerous. A singleminded predator, Tridacna Titan lives to hunt, and it will devour anything and everything that stands in its path... Well, that stands in its path for long enough, anyway. For all of its legendary ferocity and insatiable appetite, the Great White clam moves through the ocean with the swiftness of a glacier.

The diet of the Great White Clam consists mainly of Mocking Tang. As the clam travels across the seabed, vast schools of these fish follow, swimming directly in front of it, just out of the reach of its gaping maw as the clam snaps in vain at the fish with its powerful mouth. On occasion, one of the tang will wander too close and fall victim to the powerful jaws. When this happens, the school will recoil in panic as fish scatter in all directions, becoming easy prey for many larger fish, including the Colossal herring and Midnight Angler. Eventually the school will regroup and return to its constant taunting of the Great White Clam. The clam will also eat any bottom dwellers that happen to be in its path. Even the Underwater Fanged Pine is just another snack to the clam.

One of the more fascinating (and at the same time horrifying) sights in the ocean is when a Great White Clam's incredibly keen senses detect an Underwater Sea Sloth. Even though nothing in the ocean will actively hunt the sloth, the Great White's predatory instincts are too strong for it to overcome, and it will engage it in pursuit, resulting in what can only be described as the world's slowest chase. The clam will singlemindedly pursue the sloth at its glacial pace for months at a time, with the sloth apparently none the wiser. Sometimes the sloth will inadvertenty escape its pursuer by happening upon some obstacle in the water that the clam is unable to negotiate. Other times it will wander directly into the clam's jaws and its doom. There have even been instances where the sloth will make its brief landfall, turn around and return to the ocean, only to fall prey to a Great White Clam waiting just below the surface.

Unprovoked attacks by the Great White Clam on humans are rare, mostly because it would require a great deal of effort (and stupidity) on someone's part for anyone to be within striking distance of the clam. A Great White that happens to wash up on a beach can be especially deadly as curious onlookers wander too close and are devoured in messy fashion. Should a clam wash ashore living or dead, it's generally best for everyone to stay as far away as possible, at least until the clam has returned to the sea, or its remains have decomposed sufficiently that the stench is no longer unbearable. In some cultures, the Great White's empty shell is then used as a house, and can comfortably accomodate a surprisingly large number of people.

Nothing is known of the Great White Clam's mating habits, although it is known that it will build a large nest to hold its eggs. The pearlescent eggs are highly prized among the elite of the Midnight Ocean, and a single egg will command a price greater than a typical pirate may make in a year. Thus the incentive is great for a pirate to tempt fate and seek to obtain these eggs. The clam is particularly ferocious about guarding its eggs, and countless pirates have met their fate in this manner. It is not uncommon for a ship that goes out in search of the Great White's eggs to never return.

The Great White Clam is one of the ocean's deadliest, and at the same time most fascinating creatures. It is a creater that is best admired at a distance, however.

This creature originally created by Vexorg^[1].