Black-lip Pearl Oyster

Pinctada margaritifera · Mollusc

Black-lip Pearl Oyster
Black-lip pearl oyster on a reef in Oman · Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

A pearl oyster of the Indo-Pacific coral reefs, from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to Japan, Australia and French Polynesia, its shell 20 to 25 cm high, grey-brown or green outside and edged with black inside. It clings to hard ground with its byssus from the low-tide line down to 75 m, filtering clear water poor in plankton. Its grey or black pearls are held the finest of all pearl oysters; it is gathered wild on the reefs and farmed across the Indo-Pacific, and a pearl forms around a parasite or another irritant, rarely if ever a grain of sand.

Danger
Harmless
How it is met
In colonies, day and night
Size
Small
In winter
Active in winter

Where it lives

Coral Reef

Gives

Black Pearl

Sources

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox