Pearls- Natural Pearls

While talking to Gary on our iLoveShelling shelling cruise last week, he told me about four huge HORSE CONCHS and other great shells he and his family Cameron, Mary and Lauren found on Sanibel during their visit from Nashville. Amazing! He also asked me if PEN SHELLS could make PEARLS and I immediately answered "It's rare to find the PEARLS washed up on the beach but... Yes they can!". He found something that looked like a PEARL inside a PEN SHELL while looking for other shells like TRUE TULIPS which can hide or get trapped inside them (CLICK HERE for a video to show this). Of course I had to see it. If you look closely, you can see a milky circle on the inside of his shell and at about "9 o'clock" on that circle (the MOLLUSK's muscle scar where it was connected to the shell) you can see a little ball on the shell. That's a PEARL. This type of PEARL is called a BLISTER PEARL. Cool! BLISTER PEARLS are attached to the shell so mostly likely the PEARL would break if …

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