Mei Lin Neo : The fascinating secret lives of giant clams

TED 2017

Mei Lin Neo : The fascinating secret lives of giant clams (transcript)

Summary

In this TED talk, the speaker tells us that in the deep sea, there are giant claims which probably, we don't know or we’ve never seen. She showed us one big shell which is big enough for us to be surprised. The size was our outstretched arms.

The biggest recorded individual was four and a half feet long and weighed about 550 pounds that meant almost as heavy as three baby elephants and it can live to 100.

However, giant clams are considered a delicacy,  gives fishermen strong interest to capture, and clamshells are popular in the ornamental trade as jewelry or display.

Those are the reasonsthat  they start to be endangered. Furthermore, giant clams provided housing for small shrimps, crabs, and reef. It can be said that giant clams are the base of the food chain.

Disappearing big clams leads small shrimps, crabs, and small fish to extinction, and big fish and whales also can't live in the sea.

When we think about the sea, we have to think of not only big fish and whales but also reef and giant clams.

Words in this story

spare a thought for someone / to think about someone who is in a difficult situation

circulation / cycle, rotation, movement to and fro or around something, especially that of fluid in a closed system.

endangered /adj/ɛndéɪndʒɚd/ (of a species) seriously at risk of extinction.

extinct /adj/ (of a species, family, or other larger group) having no living members.

whale /wéɪl/  reef /ríːf/  crabs /krˈæb/