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Tridacna gigas, the giant clam, is the best-known species of the giant clam genus Tridacna. Giant clams are the largest living bivalve molluscs.
These clams were known to indigenous peoples of East Asia for thousands of years and the Venetian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta documented them in a journal as early as 1521. One of a number of large clam species native to the shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, they may weigh more than 200 kilograms (440 lb), measure as much as 120 cm (47 in) across, and have an average lifespan in the wild of more than 100 years.
