Giant honeycomb oyster

Giant Honeycomb oyster
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Bivalvia
Order:	Ostreoida
Family:	Gryphaeidae
Genus:	Hyotissa
Species:	H. hyotis
Binomial name
Hyotissa hyotis (Linnaeus, 1758)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hyotissa hyotis.

The giant honeycomb oyster (Hyotissa hyotis) is a very large saltwater oyster, a marine bivalve mollusk. Its native range is in deeper water in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. It has however also been found recently as an accidentally introduced species in the Florida Keys.

Species in this family are known as honeycomb oysters or "foam oysters" because under magnification, their shell structure is foam-like.

References

Like most bivalves, the giant honeycomb oyster is a filter feeder.

• The original paper about the discovery of this species in the Florida Keys:

• Paula M. Mikkelsen and Rudiger Bieler, 2008, Seashells of Southern Florida: Living Marine mollusks of the Florida Keys and adjacent regions, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, ISBN 0–691–11606–7