He Was Clamming With His Grandpa. Then: 'Holy Moly'

The mollusk that Cooper Monaco, 11, found in RI weighs almost 2.5 pounds
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Aug 1, 2020 8:30 AM CDT
Boy Digs Up Mighty Big Mollusk While Clamming With Grandpa
In this Tuesday photo, Cooper Monaco holds the large quahog he found Monday while clamming with his grandfather in Westerly, RI.   (Todd McLeish/University of Rhode Island via AP)

An 11-year-old Rhode Island boy clamming with his grandfather found a giant quahog that's thought to be one of the largest ever harvested in state waters. Cooper Monaco, of Wakefield, found the massive mollusk Monday in the Weekapaug section of Westerly and donated it to the University of Rhode Island's Marine Science Research Facility in Narragansett, the university said in a statement Thursday. The clam is 5.75 inches across and weighs nearly 2 1/2 pounds, per the AP. The state Department of Environmental Management doesn't keep quahog records, but a typical quahog grows to about 4 inches across, the university said.

"I was down on my hands and knees in the water looking for clams, and I touched this huge rock thing," Cooper said in the statement. "I always pull out rocks and throw them to the side and look under them. And then I felt the edge of it and I thought, 'Holy moly, this is a clam.' So I pulled it out. It was amazing." He knew it was unusually large, so told his mother not to cook it. Ed Baker, the manager of the URI Marine Science Research Facility, plans to put the quahog on display.

(More discoveries stories.)

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