Teredo navalis Linnaeus, 1758
Worldwide warm seas. Littoral to offshore, inside any kind of submerged wood from 0 to 150m deep. Synonyms: batavus, japonica, marina, novangliae, pocilliformis, sinensis etc.
 
« Each valve is composed of three lobes: anterior, medial and posterior. The anterior lobe [near the center of the image] bears parallel straight striae provided with some 4000 teeth, and has a large apophysys […] that embeds the adductor muscle. The latter plays as a plunger and is used as anchorage by the animal during the period of drilling. The medial lobe is divided in two parts: the anterior part shows straight striae, much more narrowed than on the anterior lobe; the posterior part has curved striae and also bears some 10.000 teeth. Eventually, the posterior lobe is ear-shaped » (DORIS).

In drift wood, Port-la-Nouvelle, Occitania, S. France. 7mm. Original pictures provided by S. Clanzig (FR).
– (CC BY-NC-SA) –
Detail of the anterior lobe (at right) and of the anterior part of the medial. Original picture provided by S. Clanzig (FR).
– (CC BY-NC-SA) –
Teredo navalis painted in G. P. Deshayes: Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie – Histoire naturelle des Mollusques, Paris 1844-1848, plate 5, via GDZ.
Teredo navalis in T. Brown: Illustrations of the recent conchology of Great Britain and Ireland, London 1844.
 
« This bivalve is seated on the wider end of a thin, white, flexuous, brittle, nearly circular, and rather abruptly tapering tube, which is internally provided with transverse septae, reaching half way across the tube. »
6m deep, in wrecked wood, Bozcaada island, Çanakkale, W. Marmara, NW. Turkey. 5,3mm.

— back to Teredinidae —