Shipworms are common in most oceans and seas and are important because of the destruction they cause in wooden ship hulls, wharves, and other submerged wooden structures.

What is Philippine shipworm?

A newly identified genus and species of worm-like, freshwater clam, commonly known as a shipworm, eats rock and expels sand as scat while it burrows like an ecosystem engineer in the Abatan River in the Philippines. ... "Most other shipworms are as skinny as your finger," Shipway says.

What do shipworms look like?

Appearance. Gould's shipworm grows to several inches in length with a long, worm-like body. It has two small shells with toothed ridges at one end of its body and two small siphons and two hard, segmented pallets at the other end of its body. The pallets look like stacks of tiny ice cream cones.