Sadly, the one natural history fact in the kickass movie Sahara is bull

Admission: I’m a huge fan of the movie Sahara. I went to see it with my dearest friend Tania when she visited me in New York in 2005. We went thinking we could heckle the hell out of it and get a good dose of eye candy (Matthew McConaughey who plays the lead swashbuckler Dirk Pitt is saturnine beyond compare). But we wound up loving it instead. Steve Zahn, who plays Dirk’s sidekick is winning and Rainn Wilson (who you may know as Dwight in The Office) graces this rollicking action-adventure flick with his unique rendition of a nerd that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

So where’s the biology behind this? Other than it’s tie-in to the recent news that men choose good looks in women - the only explanation for why McConaughey’s character in the movie was drawn to the wooden Penelope Cruz.

Well about one third of the way through the film, Dirk pauses in front of a vendor alongside the Niger river and picks up two clam shells that face each other like angel clams. And in a manner that I can only equate with what David Attenborough would have sounded like if he was raised in the south and half his age, Pitt says:

Sometimes I think about Petracola Fularatormus, the angel wing clam. This river is the only place on the earth they are found. Underwater they glow in the dark. Now the amazing thing is that modern science cannot explain why.

I’ve always wanted to learn more about this phenomena but always forget to look it up. Not this time. A quick google search reveals that there are several problems with this portion of the script according to MovieMistakes.com:

Three problems: First, Petricola Pholadiformis, are actually called “False angel wing” and are found many places in the world in fresh water (but seldom in the Niger River). Second, what’s known as the ”Angel wing” shell (no “false” in its name) has Cyrtopleura Costata, as its scientific name. Cyrtopleura Costata, ("Angel wing") is found in salt water. Third, Dirk also said they “glow in the dark”; some varieties of Cyrtopleura Costata, shells will glow if exposed to ultraviolet light but none glow from their own internal source. Petricola Pholadiformis, shells don’t glow at all.

To which I say boo. And if the producers of Sahara ever decide to make a sorely desired sequel, may I suggest that they hire the services of fact checkers. Hell, I’d even do it.