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1 research has been done on this mollusk. The Texas Game and Fish Commission, now the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department , published a bulletin in 1959 (Hofstetter) on oyster research that is worthy of study. In Texas, Sammy Ray at Texas A&M University at Galveston has studied oyster biology and diseases for over 60 years. The use of oysters as food can pose problems in some areas of the world. For example, some mollusks , mostly freshwater, carry diseases that are harmful to humans . Contamination is another danger, but national, state, and/or local health regulations regarding handling and packaging of seafood make poisoning by contaminated mollusks a negligible problem. However, private citizens who collect filter-feeding bivalves (oysters, mussels, clams) should be careful because contaminants can concentrate in certain tissues of these animals. The shells of mollusks have many long-standing, popular uses, and museums and curio shops are replete with items decorated with shells. Beads, bracelets, rattles, drums, and trumpets carved from shells all found popularity with early humans. In the priceless pre-Columbian trumpet displayed in a Mexico City museum, one is thrilled to recognize the large spired horse conch from the Gulf of Mexico. Many people cannot resist a beautiful cameo carved from the colorful shell of the Cassis snail. In fact, cameo carving is still an important industry in Italy, and precious jewelry made from shells, mounted shells, and shells transformed into silver-rimmed boxes are becoming increasingly popular. Today such items can be found in expensive specialty shops throughout the United States. Pearls produced by the family Pteriidae, the pearl oyster, have been prized since the time of the earliest humans. Except for use as food, perhaps the most important industry employing mollusks is the pearl industry.The iridescent, nacreous layer, or “mother-of-pearl,” from certain mollusks is used in the manufacture of buttons, knife handles, inlays, studs, and brooches. Natural pearls result from a foreign body entering the shell and causing an irritation in the soft tissues of the animal. In its attempt to protect itself by coating the irritant with a smooth covering of nacre, the mollusk produces a pearl. Perfect pearls formed this way are highly treasured. The production of cultivated pearls (cultured pearls) is a large industry in Japan, where foreign particles are intentionally inserted into the living mollusk , which it subsequently covers with nacre, producing a pearl. Other mollusks produce pearls and mother-of-pearl, but those of the Pteriidae are of the greatest commercial value. Primitive humans used mollusks for food and their shells as tools, containers, objects of adornment, fetishes, and currency. Kitchen middens, trash mounds, and grave sites throughout the world bear witness to the dependency of humans on mollusks for survival and as an integral part of their culture. Indeed, much has been written about the way humans have employed shells. Roderick Cameron (1961) in his book Shells, Peter Dance (1966) in Shell Collecting: An Illustrated History, and R. Tucker Abbott (1976) in Kingdom of the Seashell devote much space to this interesting relationship. They cite primitive humans’ use of mollusks as axes, spears, utensils, ornaments, knives, and trumpets, as well as a dietary staple. It is also possible to trace uses of shells inTexas. For example, the native Karankawas used shells in many ways, and numerous mounds of mollusk shells abound around Copano Bay. Around the kitchen middens and trash mounds of the Karankawas are awls and drills made from the columella of the Busycon, beads made from Oliva sayana, and scrapers made from the Busycon and Macrocallista nimbosa. Due to the shortage of rock in the area, natives sometimes fashioned arrowheads from shell. In addition, Cabeza de Vaca, in trading with the coastal peoples, found that shells were a valuable item of exchange. For more information on this topic, Kim Withers has nicely expanded on this historical use of shells in Texas in chapter 1. Mollusks have always been considered a dietary delicacy, and their cultivation for food dates back to Roman times, when runners would carry fresh Mediterranean oysters to the Caesars; in North America, runners transported fresh Pacific oysters to the Moctezumas. In coastal Texas, kitchen middens and trash mounds affirm the dietary importance of the oyster to the Karankawas. In modern times, the most important use of the mollusk is as food; even though many mollusks found in the Gulf of Mexico are edible, the only mollusk produced commercially is the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin).1 Humans are...

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