Prize snail

[Slraep]

Interesting article except---What kind of giant sea snail??

"These snails occasionally produce pearls which can fetch anything between ?5,000 and ?30,000 each," said curator Graham Burrows."

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...000-pearls-under-tight-security-13964112.html

 

[KAC]

hmm 30K pounds is a lot for a single pearl - but I guess look at how much those quahog pearls are worth

 

[Valeria101]

Golf-ball sized... USD60k... must be Melo ( Melo Melo, M. Broderipii etc.)Since the shells get to bucket size, their pearls can be huge an still very symmetrical.

Apparently, these do have some value to some people (CLICK)... easy to see why after seeing any of these pearls, methinks.

News has it that such pearls have never been cultured much like Conch have never been. However, there was at least one experiment (at a Thai university) I found easily, so... there could be more under wraps to watch for, methinks.

'That's all I know.

 

[pearlescence]

Perhaps the one from the Dr Doolittle books?

 

[jshepherd]

That is quite the security set-up they have to protect a Melo snail. Just a little outlandish perhaps.

 

[Valeria101]

That is quite the security set-up they have to protect a Melo snail. Just a little outlandish perhaps.

Security? 'Thought it's advertising ... (similar: a yellow bio-hazard sign next to poisoned aboriginal arrows in a glass case at the V&A museum). Funny British stuff ...

 

[pearlescence]

Oh we are a country infested with health and safety nonsense. It is all over us like an irritating rash

 

[Slraep]

I just read another news report on the same story via a link at the excellent(I think) Pearl-Professor blog, and now realize that the snail is only being guarded "in case" it starts making one of those costly pearls. When I read the first article(the one I posted here), I stupidly thought all this security stuff was because they had somehow detected that the snail was already forming a pearl.

Boy but that curator is a strange fellow. Why doesn't he put what it is costing to "secure" the snail into doing something more productive like saving yet some more turtles from the soup pot. Or a whole lot of other ideas.

And just out of even more curiousity, if the said snail DID start making an extra faboo and very large melo worth a king's ransom, and it DIDN'T get stolen due to the amazing foresight of the curator, what would happen to the snail next? Is the pearl going to get spit out or laid like an egg? Who's going to make it? That's only if the aquarium is thinking of cashing in on it somehow, otherwise I really, really do not understand what the curator is thinking.

Can someone find me an example of a melo being found in an aquarium gastropod specimen? I though that just keeping one of these gastropods healthy in an un-natural situation was challenging enough.

 

[Nathan Reed]

Let me see if I got this right, he says: "These snails occasionally produce pearls... The biggest one recorded was the size of a golf-ball." So he gets this amount of security!

That's tantamount to saying "diamonds are found in the ground, some are worth millions! So I'm going to build a ten foot wall around my garden in case there is a diamond in it."

P.S. Nice work Pearl Professor, whoever you are.

 

[SteveM]

I'm thinking that to make absolutely, doubly sure that the pearl is perfectly round, an oscillating rotisserie system might be devised to encourage even distribution of the melo-melo's concretions?

(Where's the tongue-in-cheek smilie when we need it?)

 

[pearlescence]

This is in fact a very good bit of publicity for the aquarium. 10/10 to whoever thought this up and wrote the release.

 

[CortezPearls]

Let me see if I got this right, he says: "These snails occasionally produce pearls... The biggest one recorded was the size of a golf-ball." So he gets this amount of security!

That's tantamount to saying "diamonds are found in the ground, some are worth millions! So I'm going to build a ten foot wall around my garden in case there is a diamond in it."

P.S. Nice work Pearl Professor, whoever you are.

You are right! And I am even going to hire a Guard to keep him posted next to my Sunday left-over Mezquite charcoal...it is CARBON: same as Diamonds!!!

It is a great Publicity stunt indeed! I agree with Wendy