Renowned for their flashy displays of light, disco clams were previously thought to be bioluminescent, but a new study claims the mollusks actually put on light shows because of their reflective tissues.
The clams, which live in deep parts of the ocean, are the subject of a new study in Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Because disco clams prefer deep crevasses far below the ocean's surface, University of California-Berkeley researcher Lindsey Dougherty would "take a reef wall, look for place with holes, and dive in there, then look for smaller holes" to conduct her research, Slate reported.
According to Dougherty's findings after studying the mollusks near Indonesia and Australia, disco clams' white tissues are made of tiny silica spheres that spread underwater light.
The white strip, which runs along the edge of the clam's red tissues, "works as a great [light] refractor because it's highly reflective," said Dougherty, as quoted by Slate. "These are the only animals we've ever found that have nanospheres as a form of light scattering."
The dark part of the clam's lip tissues doesn't reflect light, while the part with silica sphere reflects 85 to 90 percent of all underwater white light.
"They're almost ideal reflectors in blue-green water environments," Dougherty said of the silica strip, as quoted by Wired.
While the researchers aren't clear exactly why the clams need flashing lights, they have three theories for their purpose: to ward off predators, to lure prey or to attract a mate.
The disco clam isn't toxic, but its showy display makes it look as if it belongs among brightly colored poisonous species. Spider plankton and doe plankton, mainstays of the disco claim diet, may also be drawn by the flashing lights.
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