Cheryl Teh
Fri, March 3, 2023
A clam pulled out of Mission Creek, California (left), and a bowl of clam chowder soup.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The San Francisco Chronicle
Blaine Parker found a big clam on the Florida coast and wanted to turn it into clam chowder.
But Parker found out from a marine lab that it was more than 214 years old.
He named his new friend "Aber-clam Lincoln," after the president who was also born in 1809.
A Florida man and his family found a gigantic clam at Alligator Point, Florida. They were planning to cook it but realized it was more than 200 years old.
Blaine Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat that when he found the clam over Presidents' Day weekend, he thought it was just big enough for two servings of chowder.
"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," Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Parker, a member of the volunteer group AmeriCorps, ended up bringing the clam to the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, Florida. Parker is also a specimen collector for the lab, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
The lab realized Parker's find was a six-inch, 2.6-pound clam, estimated to be more than 214 years old.
Realizing how old it was, Parker named the clam "Aber-clam Lincoln".
Blaine Parker found a big clam on the Florida coast and wanted to turn it into clam chowder.
But Parker found out from a marine lab that it was more than 214 years old.
He named his new friend "Aber-clam Lincoln," after the president who was also born in 1809.
A Florida man and his family found a gigantic clam at Alligator Point, Florida. They were planning to cook it but realized it was more than 200 years old.
Blaine Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat that when he found the clam over Presidents' Day weekend, he thought it was just big enough for two servings of chowder.
"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," Parker told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Parker, a member of the volunteer group AmeriCorps, ended up bringing the clam to the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, Florida. Parker is also a specimen collector for the lab, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
The lab realized Parker's find was a six-inch, 2.6-pound clam, estimated to be more than 214 years old.
Realizing how old it was, Parker named the clam "Aber-clam Lincoln".
"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!" the lab wrote in a February 21 post on Facebook.
The lab added that most ocean quahog clams weigh around half a pound. This makes Aber-clam Lincoln five times the weight of an average clam.
The lab added that most ocean quahog clams weigh around half a pound. This makes Aber-clam Lincoln five times the weight of an average clam.
In 2006, scientists found a 507-year-old Quahog clam that they nicknamed "Ming" — after estimating that it was alive in 1499, during the Ming Dynasty in China.
The Tallahassee Democrat separately reported on February 28 that Parker had sent Aber-clam Lincoln back to his home under the sea. Parker released the clam back into the Gulf of Mexico about a week after he found it at Alligator Point, Florida.
The Gulf Specimen Marine Lab did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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