The Big Oyster is full of recipes, anecdotes and fine detail on the mollusc.
One aspect in which he is not like an octopus, however, is that the mollusc can constantly change its appearance.
He can tell a mussel that holds a pearl just by looking at it, and could extract it without damaging the mollusc, using skills learned from his father.
There were stumbles: an underwhelming taster of crab with avocado; a double oyster dish which paired the mollusc with 'chicken oysters', to little effect.
The mollusc, recently discovered living on an isolated limestone hill called Gunung Kanthan in the northwest of Peninsular Malaysia, was named Charopa lafargei after Lafarge in a bid to prevent the global and aggregates giant from decimating it.
Last year, a shucking contest was held on the back of a flatbed truck, parked on the busy town wharf: seasoned fishermen ousting the muscle of the mollusc from its pretty flat shell with a flick of the knife.
Further, the mollusc fauna indicates moderate climatic conditions and corresponds to the modern boreal fauna.
This paper focus on the mollusc assemblage attributed to the upper Karginian sediment.
This is due to the retention of Pb in the form of metal rich granules (MRG) in their kidneys throughout the mollusc lifespan.
The mollusc community structure and distribution was investigated between 2000 and 2001, using a three month sampling design of 38 stations, according to austral seasons.
Errors on the calculated δR t) values are estimated using 95% confidence intervals on the calibrated terrestrial age of each mollusc sample together with the measurement uncertainty on 14CM, i.e. the error on the mollusc 14C date.
