Teredo (bivalve)

Teredo
This dried specimen of Teredo navalis was extracted from the wood and the calcareous tunnel that originally surrounded it and curled into a circle artificially. The two valves of the shell are the white structures at the anterior end; they are used to dig the tunnel in the wood.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Myida
Superfamily: Pholadoidea
Family: Teredinidae
Genus: Teredo
Linnaeus, 1758
Type species
Teredo navalis
Species

See text.

Synonyms[1]
  • Austroteredo Habe, 1952
  • Coeloteredo
  • Pingoteredo Barsch, 1932
  • Teredo (Bitubuloteredo) Li, 1965
  • Teredo (Coeloteredo) Bartsch, 1923
  • Teredo (Zopoteredo) Bartsch, 1923
  • Zopoteredo

Teredo is a genus of highly modified saltwater clams which bore in wood and live within the tunnels they create. They are commonly known as "shipworms;" however, they are not worms, but marine bivalve molluscs (phylum Mollusca) in the taxonomic family Teredinidae. The type species is Teredo navalis.[1]

The tunneling habit of species in the genus inspired the name of the Teredo network tunneling protocol. The submarine HMS Teredo may also have been named after this genus, which works invisibly, below the surface, and can be very damaging to marine installations made of wood.

  1. ^ a b Serge Gofas (2004). "Teredo Linnaeus, 1758". WoRMS. World Register of Marine Species.