Ostrea angasi

Ostrea angasi
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Ostreoida
Family: Ostreidae
Genus: Ostrea
Species: O. angasi
Binomial name
Ostrea angasi
Sowerby, 1871

The southern mud oyster or native flat oyster, Ostrea angasi, is endemic to southern Australia, ranging from Western Australia to southeast New South Wales and around Tasmania.

Habitat

This species is found in sheltered, silty or sand-bottomed estuaries at depths between 1 and 30 m.

Diet

Flat oysters, like all other oyster species, are filter feeders, feeding on, and taking in anything small enough to be filtered in their gills. This may include plankton, microalgae or inorganic material.

General

The oyster industry in southern Australia has started farming O. angasi, after the extensive oyster reefs that had existed prior to European colonisation were mostly eradicated due to over-exploitation during the 19th and early 20th Centuries.[1][2]

References

  1. National Library of Australia > Trove: Oyster beds. South Australian Register, 15 December 1884. P 4. Accessed 8 May 2015.
  2. Alleway, H. K. and Connell S.D. (2015): Loss of an ecological baseline through the eradication of oyster reefs from coastal ecosystems and human memory. Conservation Biology, Society for Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.12452

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, November 10, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.