By Susan Milius
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — A disco clam’s flashing light show might warn predators of — with no comment on the 1970s — bad taste.
In lab tests, usually voracious mantis shrimp backed off or showed suspiciously little interest in clams as if the flashy flesh was distasteful or toxic, Lindsey Dougherty of the University of California, Berkeley reported January 4 at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. So the antipredator idea is a strong hypothesis among several in the ongoing puzzle of the clam’s flashing, Dougherty said.