- The oyster can clean the water it lives on! The oyster feeds by pumping through its body and filtering out its food (mostly algae and detritus—decaying plant and animal matter). A healthy market-size (3 inches or larger) oyster can filter 50 or more gallons of water a day.
How long would it take to filter the entire Delaware Bay?
- At one time, oysters were the #1 fishery product in the United States.
- Oysters can change gender. Usually, they are male first, turning female as they grow older. If they are bigger than 3 inches, they are probably female.
- There ar more than 400 species of oysters around the world. The ones we catch in the Delaware Bay and along most of the East and Gulf Coasts are Easter or American oysters, Crassostrea virginica.
- The world record for eating oysters, according to Guiness, is held by Tommy "Muskrat" Greene of Deale, MD, who ate 288 oysters (24 dozen, or six pounds of meat) in 1 minute, 33 seconds.
It is reported that Mr. Greene is also the world record holder for snail-eating.
- Yes, you can find pearls in the local oysters. However, they will probably be small, irregular, and not worth any money.
- Only one oyster spat in 1,145,000 survives to adulthood.
- Oysters have been farmed since ancient Roman times. Native Americans ate them 6,000-8,000 years ago, often smoking them over their campfires.
- Oysters bioaccumulate gold, mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxic metals from the water.
©1998 robert d. owens