Topical Guide 722
Mark Dorset
Personages: Fictional: The Gigantic Mortoni
What a Piece of Work I Am: Chapter 38:
“[…] generations of Babbingtonians were raised on the legend of the clamdigger who wandered all the way to the South Seas in search of the best clam beds. […] They called him the Gigantic Mortoni.”
Carnivora, “Ptychodus mortoni”:
Ptychodus mortoni was a shark believed to be about 10 m long that probably crushed and ate large shelled animals such as giant clams. It is believed to have been a sluggish bottom-dwelling shark, rather than an actively fast swimmer. It lived about 89 million years ago. Fossils have been found in the Western Interior Seaway, Kansas, USA.
Matt Walker, “Giant predatory shark fossil unearthed in Kansas”:
The fossilised remains of a gigantic 10m-long predatory shark have been unearthed in Kansas, US.
Scientists dug up a gigantic jawbone, teeth and scales belonging to the shark which lived 89 million years ago.
The bottom-dwelling predator had huge tooth plates, which it likely used to crush large shelled animals such as giant clams.
Clams: Antigona lamellaris, Tapes literatus, Tridacna gigas
What a Piece of Work I Am: Chapter 38:
He has lots to tell about the exotic clams to be found there: Antigona lamellaris, for instance, the lamellate Venus, which seems to be covered with little roofing tiles; Tridacna gigas, terror of the sci-fi movies; and my favorite, Tapes literata, the lettered Venus, the writer’s clam, each shell bearing an intriguing epigraph inscribed in something that looks like Assyrian cuneiform or Anglo-Saxon runes.”
_Michaelmas_Cay.jpg){kind=link}
See also:
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
How does Peter know so much about so many things???