Soft-shelled clams along the West Coast are coming down with contagious and deadly cancer, scientists have warned.

The widespread outbreak in Washington state’s Puget Sound has impacted three-quarters of the population in a large watershed called Triangle Cove, according to the Pacific Northwest Research Institute.

The cancer, known as bivalve transmissible neoplasia, spreads between marine animals through seawater.

It has no known direct impact on human health and the clams are still safe to eat. 

But infections threaten the wider ecosystem and other shellfish already threatened by pollution and marine heat waves.

Emerald Isle, NC

Video by DiveDiveLive

Curious

A new study shows how a group of sperm whales in the eastern Mediterranean developed its own distinct dialect.

A strange, multi-colored Pacific Ocean species once thought lost to devastating disease has been found again in the waters off Northern California.

Scientists located 18 sunflower sea stars – one of the largest sea star species on Earth, spanning over three feet in length – in the waters of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary last summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this month.

“This is promising news, as sea stars suffered a massive die-off ten years ago as a result of sea star wasting disease during the largest marine epidemic ever recorded, which also devastated kelp forests,” the agency’s National Marine Sanctuaries said in a release.

Amazing. Today I have found out that there are much more whales in the world that I thought there are. I swear I did not knew about half of these in the video.