Teredo furcifera

History of Spread

The tropical shipworm Teredo furcifera was described from Indonesia in 1894, and is now cosmopolitan (Turner 1966; Turner 1971). In the marine borer surveys, done for the U.S. Navy by the W. F. Clapp laboratories, T. furcifera (including synonyms) was reported from Japan, Phillipines, Guam, Hawaii, the Panama Canal Zone, Cuba, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Florida, and Bermuda (Wallour 1960). A few specimens were collected in Port Hueneme, California and the Gulf of California (undated collections, Museum of Comparative Zoology 2009), probably in Clapp Laboratory surveys (1940-1960).

East Coast,- On the East Coast, this shipworm was collected from Wilmington, NC, in 1941 (Museum of Comparative Zoology 2009), and was collected from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Fort Pierce, FL to Corpus Christi, TX (Wallour 1960). It was not mentioned in an earlier shipworm survey (Brown 1953). We consider this shipworm to be cryptogenic in the subtropical Northwest Atlantic (Carlton and Ruckelshaus 1997). Florida occurrences included Key West, Tampa, Panama City, Miami and Fort Pierce (Wallour 1960). Several occurrences North of Cape Hatteras are likely to represent local introductions by shipping or by yacht traffic.

Oyster Bay (NY) Barnegat Bay (NJ)- Teredo furcifera was collected in 1963 from the wooden sailing ship 'Bounty II', built for the remake of the movie 'Mutiny on the Bounty' which had been docked over the winter in Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY, following a long voyage (2 years) from Tahiti. The worm tubes were filled with larval shells, indicating that larvae had been brooded but not released (Turner 1966). Teredo furcifera was seen again in Barnegat Bay NJ in 1974, following the start-up of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in 1969. However, it became scarce in later years, and was not found in 1979 (Hoagland and Turner 1980).

Chesapeake Bay reion- Teredo furcifera was collected in 1988 and 1989 in pine planks exposed to seawater at Wachapreague VA, at the mouth of Burtons Bay on the Atlantic Coast (McGovern and Burreson 1990). Identifications were made in Ruth Turner's laboratory at Harvard University (Burreson 1998, personal communication). This shipworm was not found north of Florida in previous surveys (Wallour 1960).

History references- Wallour 1960; Turner 1966; Turner 1971; Hoagland and Turner 1980; McGovern and Burreson 1990; Carlton and Ruckelshaus 1997; Burreson 1998; Museum of Comparative Zoology 2009)

Invasion Comments