Naval shipworm

Teredo navalis, commonly called the naval shipworm or turu, is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Teredinidae.

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Teredo navalis has an elongated, reddish, wormlike body which is completely enclosed in a tunnel it has made in floating or submerged timber. At the front end of the animal are two triangular, calcareous plates. These are up to 2 cm (3⁄4 in) long and correspond to the valves of other bivalve molluscs. They are white, with a covering of pale brown periostracum, and have rough ridges. The mollusc uses them to grasp the wood and slowly enlarges the burrow in which it lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_navalis (2023-03-04)

Connections

[Marc] Brunel is said to have been inspired in his design [of the Thames tunneling shield] by the shell of the shipworm, a mollusc whose efficiency at boring through submerged timber he observed while working in a shipyard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnelling_shield (2023-03-04)

Teredo navalis painted in G. P. Deshayes: Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie – Histoire naturelle des Mollusques, Paris 1844-1848, plate 5, via GDZ.

Image & caption from: http://www.idscaro.net/sci/04_med/class/fam5/species/teredo_navalis1.htm (2023-03-04).

Extra Connections:

Copper Sheathing may have prevented the first submarine attack (during the American Revolution) by Bushnell’s *Turtle* on Admiral Richard Howe's flagship, HMS *Eagle*.