March 19, 2026 • 6 mins
Geoducks are large clams that can live for over a century, are eaten as delicacies, and look incredibly NSFW. Learn more about these amazing mollusks in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/geoducks.htm
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brains Duck, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain
Stuff Lauren Bolebaum. Here. The Gui duck is not a
type of duck, and it's not particularly guy spelled geo duck.
The Gui duck is the world's largest burrowing plam, averaging
(00:22):
just over two pounds or right around a kilo in
weight including their shell. But unlike say the giant clam,
which is almost all shell, the Gui duck's shell is
small compared to its soft body. Its body length can
be up to three feet or a meter long, and
its shell is usually only about six to eight inches
(00:43):
long or about fifteen to twenty centimeters, which means that
its shell only covers about a fifth of the Gui
duck's body. That body is composed of a meaty mantle
that fits mostly inside the shell, and a long, thick
neck or siphon that protrudes out for one end. It
has two openings at the tip of the siphon, so
(01:04):
it looks sort of like an elephant's trunk or a
worm with spouts. And look, I'm not trying to be
rude or edgy here, I'm just being accurate. It looks
really phallic. They're found in the northern part of North
America's Pacific Coast, from Puget Sound up along British Columbia
and into Alaska. Natural beds of them exist on many
(01:26):
public beaches, but they're rarely visible except at very low tides.
I say beds because these clams make a home by
burying themselves two to three feet down up to about
a meter in the mud, sand or gravel at the
ocean's floor. Oh once they're in, they're in for life.
They use their siphon to poke up above the sea
(01:47):
bed into the water. Again. The end has two openings.
They're a filter feeder, so one is for drawing in
gulps of water from which they glean oxygen and food
a phytoplankton, and then they push out excess water and
inedible stuff through the other opening. They can retract into
the sea floor to avoid predators, but again cannot fully
(02:08):
retract into their shells. Gooby ducks reproduce through what's called
broadcast spawning. Male clams release sperm into the ocean water,
a prompting female clams to release eggs a couple million
that ago if and or when they meet and fertilize
in the water larvae form and begin swimming around, eating
algae and growing their shells. Over a few weeks, they'll
(02:30):
get heavy enough that they sink to the seafloor and
burrow down. As they get older and bigger, they burrow
further down, and then they just eat and breathe and
hang out for oh say a century or so. They
grow pretty fast during their first few years of life,
reaching about one and a half pounds in five years
and their full size by fifteen years, though yes, they
(02:53):
can live much longer than that, over one hundred and
fifty years. Every year they build a new layer of
their shell from the inside, so you can see the
size that the shell was in previous years by looking
at the rings formed on the outside as each progressively
larger layer has been added from underneath. The scientists count
(03:13):
and measure the rings of their shells to assess climate
change over the decades. The oldest known Gui duck was
one hundred and sixty eight years old, and the largest
found in Discovery Bay, Washington, was eight point two pounds
that's three point seven kilos. And guy ducks aren't just
curious specimens, they're local delicacies. Indigenous peoples in the Pacific
(03:35):
Northwest have harvested guy ducks for hundreds or perhaps thousands
of years and ate them fresh or smoked. Their harvest
continues to this day, with Native American tribes holding treaty
rights to half of the shellfish harvest in Washington State's
Puget Sound to prevent commercial overfishing. The harvest of guy
ducks is tightly monitored and regulated, and has been in
(03:56):
various ways since the nineteen twenties. These shellfish are popular
outside of the Pacific Northwest too. Most of the clams
are shipped to China. They're a popular ingredient around the
lunar New Year. They typically go for about twenty to
thirty dollars a pound wherever they're sold, though prices as
high as three hundred dollars per clam are not unheard
(04:16):
of in upscale restaurants around Hong Kong. The limited harvest
and high prices that guy ducks fetch have led to
the unlikely sounding crime of clam rustling and shellfish smuggling.
In the early two thousands, wildlife authorities put away the
head of a smuggling ring on the conviction of illegally
harvesting a million bucks worth of guy ducks. People are
(04:39):
also giving gui duck farming a try, which is approximately
one hundred percent less likely to end and arrest, but
the technical and environmental details of which haven't entirely been
ironed out yet. I have never tried guy duck myself,
but from what I understand, they can be tender to crunchy,
to chewy to meaty, depending on how they're prepared, with
(05:00):
a delicate sweet, a fresh to slightly oceany flavor. I
get the idea that's like squid, but more flavorful. The
siphon is the edible part of any clam, and you
get a lot of it with a guy duck. They're
eaten in all the ways that other molluscs are eaten,
Simmered in soups and hot pots, sliced raw into sushi
(05:20):
or sushimi or savice or crudo, a baked or stir
fried or barbecued or breaded and deep fried or ground
and deep fried in fretters, and beyond all of that.
There is a school that has adopted the guy duck
as its mascot. Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is
known for its quirky curriculum structure, and focus on freedom
(05:43):
of speech and the exchange of ideas. Like the Guy Duck.
Evergreen says that they are quote accessible to all who
are willing to dig deep. I'll leave you today with
their college chant Go guy Ducks, go through the mud
and the sand. Let's go siphon Hi, squirt it out,
swivel all about, let it all hang out. Today's episode
(06:10):
is based on the article The Gooby Duck is the
World's most not Safe for work mollusk on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
written by Kristen Hall Geisler. Brain Stuff is production of
iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and it
is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my
heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to brains Duck, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain
Stuff Lauren Bolebaum. Here. The Gui duck is not a
type of duck, and it's not particularly guy spelled geo duck.
The Gui duck is the world's largest burrowing plam, averaging
(00:22):
just over two pounds or right around a kilo in
weight including their shell. But unlike say the giant clam,
which is almost all shell, the Gui duck's shell is
small compared to its soft body. Its body length can
be up to three feet or a meter long, and
its shell is usually only about six to eight inches
(00:43):
long or about fifteen to twenty centimeters, which means that
its shell only covers about a fifth of the Gui
duck's body. That body is composed of a meaty mantle
that fits mostly inside the shell, and a long, thick
neck or siphon that protrudes out for one end. It
has two openings at the tip of the siphon, so
(01:04):
it looks sort of like an elephant's trunk or a
worm with spouts. And look, I'm not trying to be
rude or edgy here, I'm just being accurate. It looks
really phallic. They're found in the northern part of North
America's Pacific Coast, from Puget Sound up along British Columbia
and into Alaska. Natural beds of them exist on many
(01:26):
public beaches, but they're rarely visible except at very low tides.
I say beds because these clams make a home by
burying themselves two to three feet down up to about
a meter in the mud, sand or gravel at the
ocean's floor. Oh once they're in, they're in for life.
They use their siphon to poke up above the sea
(01:47):
bed into the water. Again. The end has two openings.
They're a filter feeder, so one is for drawing in
gulps of water from which they glean oxygen and food
a phytoplankton, and then they push out excess water and
inedible stuff through the other opening. They can retract into
the sea floor to avoid predators, but again cannot fully
(02:08):
retract into their shells. Gooby ducks reproduce through what's called
broadcast spawning. Male clams release sperm into the ocean water,
a prompting female clams to release eggs a couple million
that ago if and or when they meet and fertilize
in the water larvae form and begin swimming around, eating
algae and growing their shells. Over a few weeks, they'll
(02:30):
get heavy enough that they sink to the seafloor and
burrow down. As they get older and bigger, they burrow
further down, and then they just eat and breathe and
hang out for oh say a century or so. They
grow pretty fast during their first few years of life,
reaching about one and a half pounds in five years
and their full size by fifteen years, though yes, they
(02:53):
can live much longer than that, over one hundred and
fifty years. Every year they build a new layer of
their shell from the inside, so you can see the
size that the shell was in previous years by looking
at the rings formed on the outside as each progressively
larger layer has been added from underneath. The scientists count
(03:13):
and measure the rings of their shells to assess climate
change over the decades. The oldest known Gui duck was
one hundred and sixty eight years old, and the largest
found in Discovery Bay, Washington, was eight point two pounds
that's three point seven kilos. And guy ducks aren't just
curious specimens, they're local delicacies. Indigenous peoples in the Pacific
(03:35):
Northwest have harvested guy ducks for hundreds or perhaps thousands
of years and ate them fresh or smoked. Their harvest
continues to this day, with Native American tribes holding treaty
rights to half of the shellfish harvest in Washington State's
Puget Sound to prevent commercial overfishing. The harvest of guy
ducks is tightly monitored and regulated, and has been in
(03:56):
various ways since the nineteen twenties. These shellfish are popular
outside of the Pacific Northwest too. Most of the clams
are shipped to China. They're a popular ingredient around the
lunar New Year. They typically go for about twenty to
thirty dollars a pound wherever they're sold, though prices as
high as three hundred dollars per clam are not unheard
(04:16):
of in upscale restaurants around Hong Kong. The limited harvest
and high prices that guy ducks fetch have led to
the unlikely sounding crime of clam rustling and shellfish smuggling.
In the early two thousands, wildlife authorities put away the
head of a smuggling ring on the conviction of illegally
harvesting a million bucks worth of guy ducks. People are
(04:39):
also giving gui duck farming a try, which is approximately
one hundred percent less likely to end and arrest, but
the technical and environmental details of which haven't entirely been
ironed out yet. I have never tried guy duck myself,
but from what I understand, they can be tender to crunchy,
to chewy to meaty, depending on how they're prepared, with
(05:00):
a delicate sweet, a fresh to slightly oceany flavor. I
get the idea that's like squid, but more flavorful. The
siphon is the edible part of any clam, and you
get a lot of it with a guy duck. They're
eaten in all the ways that other molluscs are eaten,
Simmered in soups and hot pots, sliced raw into sushi
(05:20):
or sushimi or savice or crudo, a baked or stir
fried or barbecued or breaded and deep fried or ground
and deep fried in fretters, and beyond all of that.
There is a school that has adopted the guy duck
as its mascot. Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is
known for its quirky curriculum structure, and focus on freedom
(05:43):
of speech and the exchange of ideas. Like the Guy Duck.
Evergreen says that they are quote accessible to all who
are willing to dig deep. I'll leave you today with
their college chant Go guy Ducks, go through the mud
and the sand. Let's go siphon Hi, squirt it out,
swivel all about, let it all hang out. Today's episode
(06:10):
is based on the article The Gooby Duck is the
World's most not Safe for work mollusk on HowStuffWorks dot Com,
written by Kristen Hall Geisler. Brain Stuff is production of
iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and it
is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my
heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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