Talk:Teredo navalis

A fact from Teredo navalis appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 April 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the naval shipworm was responsible for great damage to the Netherlands' sea defences in the 18th century?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Teredo navalis.

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Copper sheathing[edit]

The statement

Shipworms penetrated the copper sheathing at the nail holes, however, making the effort an expensive failure.
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_navalis#Economic_effects

from the Economic effects section doesn't match with the statements from the (lacking citations) copper sheathing page which state that copper sheathing was a problem because of bolt corrosion not because of infestation at the nail holes. Citation 7 on the Teredo navalis page may have additional insight but is paywalled. The shipworm may have been able to attack the wood under the copper sheathing after galvanic corrosion ate away the bolts on early copper sheathed ships, but that is not immediately apparent from the original statement nor what I can see of the source in citation 7.

Could someone who has access to the source in citation 7 update the quoted statement to reflect the history of teredo navalis attacking the wood of copper-sheathed ships? Perhaps noting that it attacked through holes where bolts had corroded away or that copper sheathing was effective after some initial failures (not because of the worm). Velowiki (talk) 00:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I originally wrote much of this article, but the statement you refer to above was added later. I do not have full access to #7, but the dubious statement was uncited so I have removed it. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Baltic Sea[edit]

According to different sections of this article, T.navalis doesn't like the Baltic Sea and so leaves shipwrecks alone;and also eats wood very quickly in the Baltic Sea. I think that someone who knows better than I do should at least clarify this particular contradiction. Layne Stalin (talk) 18:51, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

History[edit]

Some bits of the article don't add up. There're may be reviewed references, but that's still not a sure bet. The article claims that teredos spread in the Pacific from the 1920s onwards. By 1910 most of the worlds' big ships were steel. There are many types of worms that attack wood. Tereodos are the most feared because of their size and ability to destroy a wooden boat quickly. I have found that plywood boats rarely get attacked by these large worms as the first layer is bonded with epoxy. The taste seems to deter them. Very small worms will attack the first layer of plywood, but do little damage.27.33.251.24 (talk) 11:23, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article may seem contradictory but if you read the NOBANIS source which deals with a lot of the history, you will see that the situation with regard to the Baltic is quite complex. The damage in the Pacific in the 1920s was to wharves and piers rather than vessels. It is not always easy to explain how a species gets to a new location or why it persists when it has not done so before. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:01, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]