Inside Giant Clams - 10/27/15

By John Racanelli

Published November 4, 2015 at 9:24 PM EST

Tridacna gigas, the giant clam of the Indo-Pacific, is the largest bivalve mollusk on Earth and the world's only sun-powered clam. It hosts a thick layer of zooxanthellae in its tissues and gets up to 90 percent of its nutrition from their photosynthesis.

Imagine if we could do that? Just stand outside on a sunny day and photosynthesize? That's pretty close to a free lunch.

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John Racanelli

As chief executive officer, John Racanelli leads a team of 600 full and part-time employees and 1,000 volunteers in pursuing the National Aquarium’s mission to inspire conservation of the world’s aquatic treasures. More than 1.5 million people annually visit the Aquarium’s venue in Baltimore, Maryland, while millions more are touched by the Aquarium’s education programs, outreach activities, social media campaigns and conservation initiatives.

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