This YouTube video of a clam "eating" salt is making the rounds on the Internet today, but we here at Business Insider wanted to know more, so we asked some researchers to take a look and let us know what they think. Here's the video for your reference:
Researcher Hans Ulrick Riisgård, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Research Centre in Denmark, said this clam isn't actually eating: "The poor clam on the kitchen table sticks out its muscular foot in a vain attempt to dig itself into the sediment where it normally lives," he said. "The salt on the table just sticks to the wet foot but is not eaten by the clam which is a suspension-feeder."
Essentially, the poor clam is just trying to survive! Brian Bayne, a marine researcher from the University of Sydney agreed that this clam is definitely not feeding.
"These clams live buried in mud and they get there by digging-in with a large, mobile foot (which looks convincingly like a tongue), he said. "This clam, stranded on someone's floor, is trying to dig itself back home."
Clams like this actually feed by filtering small plant particles from the water using their gills, which are located inside the shell.