famed all over the human beings for their tie-up with beautiful jewelry and theiraphrodisiac connotations , oyster are synonymous with fine dining and expensive tastes . Now , a fresh metal money of pearl oyster has been delineate after sample were collected from the east seacoast of Phuket Island , Thailand .
The new species – Pinctada phuketensissp . nov – is a phallus of thePinctadagenus , with both geomorphological and molecular data backing up this conclusion . The new species is closely related to the Sharks Bay bead oyster ( Pinctada albina ) andPinctada nigra .
The find is describe in a newspaper published in the journalZooKeys .
Shell of Pictada phuketensis sp. nov. from Dok Mai Island, Phuket, Thailand. Image credit: Somrup, S. et al. (2022)
There are around 20 species in the genusPinctada , distributed in tropical and sub - tropical regions across the Indo - Pacific and Western Atlantic . Many species are used in off-white aquaculture , and while the pearl agriculture industry is growing , understanding of thePinctadaspecies has remained somewhat limited .
In their new paper , maritime biologists garner 15 pearl huitre species from around the Dok Mai Island off the westerly coast of Thailand while aqualung diving . A diminished sample distribution from each of the oyster was necessitate for DNA analysis and careful morphological examinations were made . The squad describe the newfangled species as smaller than related bead oysters , lack hinge teeth , and with dark-brown stripes on the extraneous surface .
While pearl huitre get the most congratulations for creating the white pearls used in jewelry , it is actually a common misconception , as all mollusk specie , including clams and even mussel , can make pearls .
One buffet car even set up an 8.8 - millimeter ( 0.3 column inch ) pearl said to be deserving thousandsin his clam appetizer , which is considerably more beneficial than theplastics and pathogensthat are contained within some edible oysters .
The team evoke that further work on thePinctadagenus is need to discover more about their organic evolution , variety , and genetic science .
