Most clams are happy to make their burrow in a nice, soft bed of sand or mud. Not this mollusc. A recently uncovered relative of the shipworm puts the hard into hardcore, chewing holes into rocks and excreting the debris as sand.

Lithoredo abatanica joins a short list of freshwater animals capable of literally weathering the landscape and creating real estate for other species to hide in, while potentially affecting the course of their river ecosystem.

Only thing is, we don’t really know why it goes to these lengths.