There's something almost prehistoric about coming face to face with a giant clam on a Pacific reef — these aren't the pale, unassuming bivalves of your local seafood counter. We're talking living boulders of electric blue, neon green, and sunset orange, some stretching five feet across and tipping the scales at half a ton. In this episode, David and Vicki dive into the world of Tridacna with Jordan Flagel, lead environmental scientist at IMARCS — the International Marine Science and Carbon Sequestration Foundation — whose work spans coral reefs, mangrove forests, and these often-overlooked giants of the Indo-Pacific.

Once so abundant they carpeted reef flats from the Philippines to French Polynesia, giant clams have been hammered by decades of overharvesting and habitat loss, landing several species on the endangered list. Jordan talks restoration — what it takes to bring these reef engineers back from the brink — and gets into some genuinely exciting science: the symbiotic algae living in a clam's technicolor mantle, the same zooxanthellae that give corals their color, may hold clues for helping reefs bounce back after bleaching events.

Giants, color, carbon, and coral — this one's got range. Let's snap to it.