Recent content by Tango

Amazing pictures!, are they from a southafrican abalone?, (can?t remember the name)

Hi Adeline, the picture in karipearls looks like a wild red abalone (h. rufescens).

Hi Marcus, I?m related to an abalone farm, Haliotis rufescens.

amazing, the colors and all the rest???

Interesting hypothesis. There is the point never the less, of the formation of this inflamation outside the circulatory system, next to the shell, where aren?t any of this lyzosomal enzymes, lectins, etc. So this phenomenon would be explain only in the intraperitoneum space.

Protozoos can use the blood stream to travel too Lisa, but only when the infestation is big, the same for bacteria, septicemy. The haliotis circulatory system is open, there for, it?s easier to be infected than ours. By antinuclear you mean apoptosis Dave?

Assuming the question is for me, I?m not shure about the origin of the nacar piece in your picture. The image is not very clear but it may be formed because of a different reason from the ones on my shells. In that area, the gonadal area, there isn?t a peritoneum that holds the organs and...

One of the images

Steve, I think that more than nacre secretion away from the mantle, in the abalon case it?s because of the "alternant" (hope this is the word) nacre deposition system, it is the conchiolin the one that is been secreted away from the mantle, the nacre formed is just an special arrange of the...

Hi Steve, I?m still waiting for new shells to send you, I haven?t gone to the farm yet but I asked to some workers there to search some for you.

Good pictures!, Thank you for posting them. For me looks like in a first moment the animal was fighting the disease and after he controled it with the nacar, like a "quiste" (from spanish).

Hi New Zealand, The shell is about 11 cm and farmed in the VI region of Chile and as Steve says it?s H. rufescens.

I agree with you Steve, we need to remember that the abalone shell is one of harder materials in nature, the cinetic force needed to break the shell would be huge (7280 psi, fracture resistance). And, this a cultured animal, not exposed to the sea. Tango

As I promised, Here are two pictures of an abalone suffering of the disease I told you about. You can see the hollowness and horn shape of the conchiolin deposits. The picture is not very clear but inside the horn there is some nacar "growing".

I don?t because usually they are stick to the inside shell and it?s a symptom of a undetermined disease wich start with high levels of conchiolin growth inside the animal. I?m supposing this is the same process that develop a natural pearl but maybe I?m wrong. Next week I?m going to the abalone...