akoya oyster populations should return to health, probably by the year 2002. Thinning may solve the problem, Müller says, because lower shell density usually results in a higher quality pearl.

Watch Andreia Salvador, Curator of Marine Mollusca, take a look at one of the Museum's most extraordinary and precious pearls. Among the millions of bivalve molluscs in the Museum's collections, one ...

Pearls are made by marine oysters and freshwater mussels as a natural defence against an irritant such as a parasite entering their shell or damage to their fragile body. The oyster or mussel slowly ...

the nation's third-largest pearl producer, Akoyagai oyster deaths were first noticed in June in Shima's Ago Bay and surrounding area. The oysters died after the inner layer of their shells shrank.

A natural pearl will form in an oyster when a foreign object, like a grain of sand, gets inside the shell. To protect itself, the oyster will coat the unwelcome visitor with layers of nacre ...

Natural pearls form when some kind of irritant, usually a small organism, makes its way into the shell of a mollusk like an oyster or a mussel. To protect itself from the invader, the mollusk ...

Oyster shells are bulky and plain, but the treasures they hold go beyond their tasty meat and beautiful pearls. One company in Hong Kong is turning them into materials for constructing buildings.