''Kuphus'' is a genus of

shipworms The shipworms, also called teredo worms or simply teredo (, via Latin ), are marine life, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae, a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commo ...

, marine

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

s in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Teredinidae The shipworms, also called teredo worms or simply teredo (, via Latin ), are marine bivalve molluscs in the family Teredinidae, a group of saltwater clams with long, soft, naked bodies. They are notorious for boring into (and commonly eventual ...

. While there are four

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

in the genus,Maempel, George Zammit. "Kuphus melitensis, a new teredinid bivalve from the late Oligocene Lower Coralline Limestone of Malta." Mededelingen van de Werkgroep voor Tertiaire en Kwartaire Geologie 30.3/4 (1993): 155–175

/ref> the only Extant taxon, extant species is '' Kuphus polythalamius'' (also incorrectly spelled as ''Kuphus polythalamia''). It is the longest bivalve mollusc in the world, where the only known permanent natural habitat is

Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat Kalamansig, officially the Municipality of Kalamansig (, Jawi: ايڠد نو كلمانسيݢ), is a municipality in the province of Sultan Kudarat, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 50,900 people. The main mean ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

.Bayle, Alfred (April 18, 2017)
Rare giant shipworm mollusk found in Philippine waters
Inquirer.net. Retrieved 2020-09-10. Members of this genus secrete

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime (mineral), lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of Science, scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcare ...

tubes. Based only on the calcareous tube, this species was originally thought by

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

to be a tube worm, so he placed it in the genus ''

Serpula ''Serpula'' (also known as calcareous tubeworm, serpulid tubeworm, fanworm, or plume worm) is a genus of sessile, marine annelid tube worms that belongs to the family Serpulidae. Serpulid worms are very similar to tube worms of the closely r ...

''. Despite the fact that '' Kuphus polythalamius'' is now known to be a mollusc, its

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often con ...

is the giant tube worm. Since 1981 however, the name "giant tube worm" has also been applied to the

hydrothermal vent Hydrothermal vents are fissures on the seabed from which geothermally heated water discharges. They are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at mid-ocean ridges, ocean basins, and hot ...

species ''

Riftia pachyptila ''Riftia pachyptila'', commonly known as the giant tube worm and less commonly known as the giant beardworm, is a marine invertebrate in the phylum Annelida (formerly grouped in phylum Pogonophora and Vestimentifera) related to tube worms ...

'', which is indeed a worm, an

annelid The annelids (), also known as the segmented worms, are animals that comprise the phylum Annelida (; ). The phylum contains over 22,000 extant species, including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to vario ...

Species

The sole living species is: *'' Kuphus polythalamius'' Extinct species are: *†'' Kuphus arenarius'' *†'' Kuphus incrassatus'' *†'' Kuphus fistula'' *†'' Kuphus melitensis''

Taxonomy

Large, tusk-shaped, calcareous tubes were occasionally washed up on beaches. There was disagreement among zoologists in the 18th century as to whether the creature which made one of these was a

polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine Annelid, annelid worms, common name, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called c ...

tube-worm or came from a

described the species in 1758. He considered that it was a

serpulid The Serpulidae are a family of sessile, tube-building annelid worms in the class Polychaeta. The members of this family differ from other sabellid tube worms in that they have a specialized operculum that blocks the entrance of their tubes wh ...

worm and named it ''Serpula arenaria'', a name which in 1767 he changed to ''Serpula polythalamia''. There was some confusion as to precisely which

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

he was describing, but ''S. polythalamius'' became the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of the genus ''

'', a genus of

worms. In 1770, Guettard introduced the name ''Kuphus'' for the genus, realising that the animal was not a worm but a mollusc. This meant that, according to the ICZN rules, the specific name became '' Kuphus polythalamius'' (Linnaeus, 1758).

Fossil record

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s of '' Kuphus polythalamius'' have been found dating back to the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

. They came from rocks in various tropical and sub-tropical areas including Indonesia, Pakistan, Jamaica, Grenada, South Africa and Somalia. Fossils of the extinct species, '' Kuphus melitensis'', are found in Late Oligocene-aged coralline limestone of

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. Fossils of the extinct species, '' Kuphus incrassatus'', have been found in rocks in Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Florida and Mississippi. Another species is '' Kuphus arenarius'' that have been recorded in Oligocene to Miocene-aged limestone layers of Asmari Formation in Iran. They are common in sedimentary

Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

rocks in the Caribbean region. They date back to the Oligocene and

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

and have been used for absolute dating of the rocks, using the relative proportions of two

strontium Strontium is a chemical element; it has symbol Sr and atomic number 38. An alkaline earth metal, it is a soft silver-white yellowish metallic element that is highly chemically reactive. The metal forms a dark oxide layer when it is exposed to ...

isotopes in the fossils. Fossils of the extinct species, '' Kuphus fistula'', dating from the

and

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in the United States.

Misidentification as dinosaur remains

Fossils found near Warsaw by

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Friedrich von Huene Baron Friedrich Richard von Hoyningen-Huene (22 March 1875 – 4 April 1969) was a German nobleman paleontologist who described a large number of dinosaurs, more than anyone else in 20th-century Europe. He studied a range of Permo-Carbonife ...

in 1941 were misidentified as being the teeth and parts of the jaw of a new species of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

, which he named '' Succinodon putzeri''. It was later determined that these were in fact the fossil remains of a marine boring bivalve, a previously undescribed species of ''Kuphus''.

Distribution

Today, '' Kuphus polythalamius'' is found in the western Pacific Ocean, the western and eastern Indian Ocean and the Indo-Malaysian area.''Kuphus polythalamia'' (Linnaeus, 1758)
OBIS Indo-Pacific Molluscan Database. Retrieved 2012-01-12. The range includes the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

and

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

. However, the only thoroughly studied natural habitat of the species is in

in the

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18592651 * Extant Chattian first appearances Chemosynthetic symbiosis Chattian genus first appearances Bivalve genera