World’s Largest Oyster
May 25, 2012
You never know what sort of treasures you’ll find if you go snooping around Humboldt County. Retired navy pilot Richard Mesce was kayaking on Humboldt Bay in 2008 when he found what so far is the world’s largest living oyster. Check this sucker out:
Mesce says he found it under eight inches of mud, and estimates that it’s 80 years old, which raises two red flags in my mind:
1. How could an oyster survive and feed under eight inches of mud?
2. Pacific oysters weren’t introduced into Humboldt Bay until the 1950s, meaning this one can’t be more than 60 years old…unless it’s an Olympia, the native oyster, which was pretty much wiped out in California much earlier than that. Olympias don’t generally get larger than an inch or so, so this can’t possibly be an Olympia…can it?
Read the full story here.
And while we’re on the topic of giant oysters, here’s a story about the largest oyster ever found in Britain. It was dredged out of the English Channel three years ago, and it’s definitely a European Flat, and a beauty at that.
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