Culture of half_pearls ('mabé') from the Winged Pearl Oyster Pteria penguin

During the blister pearl cultivating, pearl nucleus made from polyethylene plastics and surgical pearl oysters chosen from both normal and malformation in shape were used. After six months of culture ,survival and pearl formation rate of oysters in normality shape was 73.3%～93.8% and 55.0%～82.0%,respectively. The survival rate and the percentage of pearl formation of the malformed was 60% and 53.3% respectively. The experiments indicated that the height of pearl nucleus had a significant influence on the survival and percentage of pearl formation of pearl producing shell. The higher pearl nucleus was, the lower survival rate and percentage of pearl formation of the oysters would be. There was highly significant(P0.01) difference between the pearl producing shell of normality and malformation in shell shape in survival rate and percentage of pearl producing. Furthermore, the malformaed oysters should not be used for the production of blister pearl.