Clams

'Tis the season? Clam 'licking' salt off a dinner table with enormous 'tongue' becomes internet sensation

An ordinary clam doing what appears to be an extraordinarily strange act has made it a celebrity, as thousands of people have watched the creature lap up a pinch of salt.

A video of the animal's antics has accrued nearly 200,000 views as people cannot figure out what has caused the clam to season itself.

The clam sits on a dinner table with salt scattered around it until a cream, pulpy 'tongue' emerges from its shell, appearing to take a sample of its salty surroundings.

The sea creature's 'tongue' slowly creeps out of the shell and taps down on the table, elongating till it is nearly a full body-length away.

It rescinds, dripping with moisture, before dipping back out for more.

The MailOnline spoke to Miriam Goldstein, a graduate student of oceanography at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, to find out what on earth this clam is up to


'The clam is not eating salt,' she said. 'That appendage isn't the clam's tongue, it's the clam's foot.'

Ms Goldstein said that most clams use their 'feet' to move and to dig, as most live buried under sand or mud.

'This clam on the table is probably trying to find a place to dig itself in,' she said to the MailOnline

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172241/Tis-season-Clam-licking-salt-dinner-table-enormous-tongue-internet-sensation.html#ixzz20RvK0oc0