Also known as jingles for their use in wind chime mobiles, this creature attaches to solid substrates like rocks, docks, and pilings, and can be found from the intertidal zone to a depth of 90 m. It's range stretches from the Bering Sea to Baja California and into the Sea of Cortez.
These little creatures break all the rules about how pearls form, how animals evolve and how we perceive things. For a very long time, field naturalists, scientists and authors thought the brilliant green color was algae infiltrated into the nearly transparent shells of this common marine invertebrate.
When I first discovered pearls buried deep within the tissues of this non-commercial species, it became readily apparent the algae theory was a myth. The presence of green pigments within the proteins of these tiny pearls originate from metabolic processes, not physical contact.
Not just that. These pearls defy commonality in onset, structure, translucency and color. Subsequent scanning electron microscopy (SEM) debunked the term "non-nacreous" by supporting evidence that all shell bearing mollusks and gastropods are indeed nacreous to some degree.
