Commercial bead-seeded pearls produced in Chile from the red abalone

If you’re hoping to find an abalone pearl out in nature, might we encourage you to think again. According to a 2024 paper, approximately one in 100,000 abalone form a natural pearl. Most of those you’ll find on the market are engineered through seeding, where an artificial nucleus is sewn into the abalone that then gets encased in nacre before being retrieved several months to years later.

An abalone pearl is created in a similar way to that of an oyster, building up layer by layer as nacre accumulates around a nucleus. Abalone pearls may differ due to the snail’s anatomy, however, often having less uniform shapes and a stunning blue hue.

Who is this new species of abalone?
Meet Manawatāwhi pāua, Haliotis pirimoana, whose name means “the pāua that clings to the sea”. Researchers had long been pondering if this small abalone might be different from other species, and they were able to confirm their suspicions by extracting ancient DNA from shells.

“Species discovery is seldom punctuated by a clear ‘Eureka!’ moment,” explained the scientists behind the discovery for The Conversation. “More often, it’s a muted thought that something looks a little different. So it was with the discovery of the Manawatāwhi pāua.”

Follow the source to see photos of cultured abalone pearls.

SOURCE: https://www.iflscience.com/precious-abalone-a-rare-pearl-producing-snail-just-got-a-new-species-75827