A man in Florida has made a remarkable find during a family walk along a beach on the Gulf of Mexico.
As reported by CBS News, Blaine Parker was enjoying a walk along Alligator Point when he came across a quahog clam. But this was no ordinary clam - this clam was abnormally large!
According to the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration, the average quahog clam can grow anywhere from 2.8 to 4.3 inches in shell length. However, this beast measured six inches in length and weighed an impressive 2.6 pounds.
Recognizing the importance of the mollusk, Parker would eventually hand it over to the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab, where scientists were able to calculate the clam's age based on it's growth rings.
As predicted, this clam was old - dating all the way back to 1809.
To put that into perspective, this clam shares the same birth year as former US president Abraham Lincoln, writer Edgar Allen Poe, and naturalist Charles Darwin.
In fact, in a Facebook post shared to the GSML's official page - coincidentally on President's Day - they revealed that the clam had been named "Aber-clam Lincoln".
The post reads: "Last Saturday, one of our AmeriCorps Members, Blaine, and his family, the Parkers, walked on Alligator Point and found an Ocean Quahog, Arctica islandica.
"These mollusks range from Newfoundland to North Carolina and are found within 2.8- 4.3in length, but Aber-clam Lincoln is 6in, weighing 2.6 lbs.!"
The post continued: "The Ocean Quahog can live to be over 200 yrs., reproducing by the age of 6 and commercially eaten at 20yrs. Age can be calculated by the number of layers on the shell, with each layer representing a year; with this, Blaine counted 214 layers on Aber-clam Lincoln’s shell, meaning this clam was born in 1809, the same year as Abraham Lincoln, hence its name!"
And speaking to the Tallahassee Democrat, Parker did admit that he was considering eating the substantial clam - believing there would be enough meat in there for a couple of chowders. But, in the end, he decided against it, saying: "We were just going to eat it, but we thought about it a while and figured it was probably pretty special.
"So, we didn't want to kill it."
But what happened to Aber-clam? Well, the GSML revealed in a comment that it was going to be returned "back into his natural habitat where he was found so that he may live a full life without much human disruption." A few days later, they confirmed that the clam had returned to the ocean.
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