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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Lunchtime Quickie: Fish 'N Chips?

Posted by on Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 12:30 PM

Hot on the heels of yesterday's BBQ chip bandits, is this clam, er, scallop, chompin' on chips. Question is: cute and harmless, or mean and abusive?

 

Comments (15) RSS

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1
Save the termites!
Posted by Foonken2 http://www.whatnonotnow.tumblr.com on July 11, 2012 at 12:39 PM
2
Yay, let's torture an innocent mollusk for amusement!
Posted by Mike in Olympia on July 11, 2012 at 12:43 PM
Dougsf 3
That frame rate is abusive.
Posted by Dougsf on July 11, 2012 at 12:45 PM
Collin 4
How lame. Around here we frolic with clams. http://youtu.be/uUANmtaY1lQ
Posted by Collin on July 11, 2012 at 12:47 PM
Matt from Denver 5
If they cooked and ate it immediately afterward, no harm or foul was done. I'm more concerned with the fact that it's out of water, but then again I have no idea if scallops can tolerate that or not. (Although again, if it was eaten right afterward, no harm, no foul.)
Posted by Matt from Denver on July 11, 2012 at 12:49 PM
6
Can you really torture something with no brain?
Posted by Ben on July 11, 2012 at 12:50 PM
7
Torture? It's a fucking clam. Little receptors in its "mouth" are telling it to chomp. There's no thought going on here.
Posted by The CHZA on July 11, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Zebes 8
The real torture here is forcing the cameraman to film this when they obviously suffer from a debilitating condition that makes it excruciatingly painful to hold something still.
Posted by Zebes http://www.badrap.org/rescue/index.html on July 11, 2012 at 1:00 PM
9
@8 FTW (You made me laugh.)

Posted by Brooklyn Reader on July 11, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Fnarf 10
That looks like a scallop, not a clam. And I think it's trying to get away, not "munch" -- they move by squirting water by opening and closing their shell. They certainly don't eat by chewing; they are filter feeders. The animal has no way of eating a chip.
Posted by Fnarf http://www.facebook.com/fnarf on July 11, 2012 at 1:42 PM
venomlash 11
@10: Got it on the nose. Scallops are able to swim briefly as an escape mechanism by clapping their valves; they swim up higher into the water column and let the current move them away from a potential predator.
I saw this demonstrated in my Biodiversity lab this quarter. My professor held a predatory snail next to a scallop in a tank, and as soon as the scallop smelled the mucus from the snail, it was at the top of the tank in a flash. They move pretty quickly, for bivalves.
Posted by venomlash on July 11, 2012 at 2:57 PM
emma's bee 12
This makes me ineffably sad.
Posted by emma's bee on July 11, 2012 at 3:29 PM
13
How sad. Put it back in the water and leave it the hell alone. Or put it out of it's misery and then don't waste it, eat it.

Scallops filter plankton, I used to have some in a reef tank for a few years. So it is not "eating the chip" but trying to get away. Scallops have eyes on the rim of their shell! So it sees the tormentor. And therefore has small brain. But even creatures without a brain know pain (jellyfish) and avoid it. Don't make it suffer for your amusement.

If this video was of a fish having potato chips stuffed into it's opening and closing gills, "look, it is eating from the side of it's head!" would that be as amusing?
Posted by fotoeve on July 11, 2012 at 11:35 PM
14
I'm thinking of how funny it would look cramming a pile of potato chips into the crotch of the owner of that hand - "Look! It's screwing a pile of potato chips!".
Posted by MemeGene on July 12, 2012 at 7:37 AM
15
Yum yum chop!
Posted by Ron Boolio on July 12, 2012 at 8:06 AM

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