Marine borers, particularly the shipworms, as destroyers of timber, par excellence, are well known from very ancient times. They attacked the wooden hulls of ships with such intensity that the weakened bottom planks broke up even due to a mild impact caused by hitting a rock or any floating objects inducing shipwrecks. Even the survival of sunken ships as wrecks depends on the mercy of wood-destroying organisms, which may turn these 'port-holes' to history into meaningless junks. The silent saboteurs, involved in several early shipwrecks, are the molluscan and crustacean borers, aided by...