Be careful not to dig too close to the dimple or the clam will be damaged.Īlmost all clams with broken shells will die, therefore diggers are required to retain all razor clams re- gardless of size. When this "show" or "dimple" is found, a scoop or two of sand is dug away beside the dimple and the clam is found by reaching into the sand in the side of the hole. Razor clams are found by the hole left on the sand surface as the clam’s neck is withdrawn. Because this is their method of movement, they are able to move faster in soft, wet sand near the water’s edge than in the dryer, packed sand farther from the water. The clam then pulls itself down to its anchored foot. Razor clams move by extending their foot (digger) into the sand below their shell, then flattening out the tip of the foot like a rivet head. One of the fastest rates of descent reported was one inch per second (but the clam could not sustain this rate for an extended period of time.) Another researcher found that the razor clams he studied could dig several feet deep at nine inches per minute. One investigator found that a young, small clam could rebury itself in seven seconds. Mobility increases during July and August. In March and April, razor clams near the surface tend to slow down, due to the cooler spring temperatures. Low temperatures make the clam sluggish and slow warmer temperatures make them faster. Razor clams are "cold-blooded" organisms. The speed depends on many things: temperature, consistency of the sand, and the size of the clam, for example. The faster the clam descends in its burrow, the harder the clam digger has to work to extract this tasty bivalve. The speed at which a razor clam reburies itself is very important to the clam digger.
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