Ostrea conchaphila

Ostrea conchaphila is a species of oyster, a marine bivalve mollusk which lives on the Pacific coast of Mexico south of Baja California. Until recently there was some confusion as to whether this more southern oyster species might in fact be the same species as Ostrea lurida, the well-known but more northerly "Olympia oyster", which it resembles in shell size and color. Because of this confusion, the name O. conchaphila was sometimes applied to various populations of what is now known to be O. lurida.

Ostrea conchaphila
Ostrea conchaphila shell
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Ostreida
Family: Ostreidae
Genus: Ostrea
Species:
O. conchaphila
Binomial name
Ostrea conchaphila
(Carpenter, 1857)

Recent molecular evidence supports the idea that this species is a separate, more southerly species.[1]

Distribution

This species occurs on the West Mexican coast south of Baja California from the Gulf of California to northern Peru.[2] There was previously some disagreement about whether this species was distinct from Ostrea lurida, the Olympia oyster, a species which lives north of Baja California on the northern Pacific coast of North America.[3]

References

  1. Polson, Maria P.; Hewson, William E.; Eernisse, Douglas J.; Baker, Patrick K.; Zacherl, Danielle C. (2009). "You Say Conchaphila, I Say Lurida: Molecular Evidence for Restricting the Olympia Oyster (Ostrea lurida Carpenter 1864) to Temperate Western North America". Journal of Shellfish Research. 28: 11–21. doi:10.2983/035.028.0102.
  2. "WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species - Ostrea conchaphila Carpenter, 1857". www.marinespecies.org. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  3. Polson, Maria P. (2009), "You Say Conchaphila, I Say Lurida: Molecular Evidence for Restricting the Olympia Oyster (Ostrea lurida Carpenter 1864) to Temperate Western North America", Journal of Shellfish Research, 28 (1): 11–21, doi:10.2983/035.028.0102, [I]ts name was called into question when it was synonymized with O. conchaphila Carpenter 1857, an oyster whose type locality is Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico. Others have considered it more plausible that the Olympia oyster is a more northern species, distinct from O. conchaphila...
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.