Sea worms known as sea termites are attacking what is believed to be the wreck of Captain James Cook’s flagship HMB Endeavour, soon leaving the timbers, according to a marine biologist.
U.K.-based marine invertebrate expert Reuben Shipway noticed the damage as soon as he dove into what’s left of the wreck on the murky bottom of Newport Harbor, The Boston Globe reports.
A maritime museum diver on what is believed to be the wreck of the HMB Endeavour.
Shipworms had broken through the wood, cutting a maze of tunnels leaving what looked like a honeycomb.
Shipway said pieces of wood exposed on the harbor floor were being eaten from the inside by a species known as Teredo navalis, or naval shipworm. “This damage is constant,” he said. “Worms’ guts are full of wood.”
He said there was also damage from the outside and that he had found evidence that a species of crustacean called gribbles had eaten the wood. An estimated 10 to 15 percent of the ship that could be Endeavor will remain, the report says.
Teredo navalis, the shipworm, is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Tereninidae. Credit: Getty
The report is the latest installment in a partnership between the Australian National Maritime Museum and its research partner, the Rhode Island Maritime Archeology Project. In February, then-Museum Executive Director Kevin Sumption said the wreck was positively identified as the Endeavour. But the project’s lead researcher, Kathy Abbass, quickly dismissed the claim as a “breach of contract” and “premature.”
He said the jury was still out and his findings would be based on proper scientific process rather than “emotions or Australian politics”. It is expected to publish its findings shortly, possibly this month.
Daryl Karp, the museum’s new director and CEO, told the Herald last month that the museum was now even more certain that the wreck was the Endeavour.