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.

Among the millions of bivalve molluscs in the Museum's collections, one specimen stands out: a large oyster shell, donated to the Museum in 1886 and containing a peculiar pearl. Rather than a ...

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 ...

A woman has discovered a pearl in an oyster while "slurping down" her monthly treat. Esmee Nicholls, 77, from Weymouth, said she first mistook the gemstone for a piece of shell. It came from one ...

The oyster or mussel slowly secretes layers of aragonite and conchiolin, materials that also make up its shell. This creates a material called nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, which encases the ...

A retractable foot, a siphon for sucking up water, powerful muscles, and, sometimes, a pearl. And you thought ... a kind of mollusk that's encased in a shell made of two valves, or hinging parts.

Over the course of 10 years, the Billion Oyster Project, one of New York's most ambitious rewilding initiatives, has planted ...