Rock oyster explained

Rock oysters are true oysters of the genus Saccostrea, belonging to the subfamily Saccostreinae of the family Ostreidae.^[1]

The best-known species is the Sydney rock oyster (Saccostrea glomerata).

Species

The World Register of Marine Species lists these species:

• Saccostrea circumsuta (Gould, 1850)
• Saccostrea cucullata (Born, 1778) – hooded oyster
• Saccostrea echinata (Quoy & Gaimard, 1835) – tropical black-lip rock oyster
• Saccostrea glomerata (Gould, 1850) - Sydney rock oyster
• Saccostrea kegaki Torigoe & Inaba, 1981
• Saccostrea malabonensis (Faustino, 1932) – Philippine hooded oyster (talabang kukong kabayo)
• Saccostrea mordoides Z.-M. Cui, L.-S. Hu, C. Li, Z. Zhang, X.-M. Guo & H.-Y. Wang, 2021
• Saccostrea palmula (Carpenter, 1857)
• † Saccostrea saccellus (Dujardin, 1837)
• Saccostrea scyphophilla (Peron & Lesueur, 1807)
• Saccostrea spathulata (Lamarck, 1819)
• Saccostrea subtrigona (G.B. Sowerby II, 1871)
• † Saccostrea virleti (Deshayes, 1835)

Synonyms:

• Saccostrea commercialis (Iredale & Roughley, 1933): synonym of Saccostrea glomerata (Gould, 1850)
• Saccostrea cucullata [sic]: synonym of Saccostrea cuccullata (Born, 1778) (misspelling)
• Saccostrea forskahlii (Gmelin, 1791): synonym of Saccostrea cuccullata (Born, 1778)
• Saccostrea margaritacea (Lamarck, 1819): synonym of Striostrea margaritacea (Lamarck, 1819)
• Saccostrea mordax (Gould, 1850): synonym of Saccostrea scyphophilla (Peron & Lesueur, 1807)
• Saccostrea tubulifera (Dall, 1914): synonym of Saccostrea palmula (Carpenter, 1857)

References

• Dollfus, G.F. & Dautzenberg, P. (1920). Conchyliologie du Miocène moyen du Bassin de la Loire. 1re Partie: Pélécypodes (suite et fin). Mémoires de la Société Géologique de France, Paléontologie. 22(2-4): 379-500, pls 34-51.
• Coan, E. V.; Valentich-Scott, P. (2012). Bivalve seashells of tropical West America. Marine bivalve mollusks from Baja California to northern Peru. 2 vols, 1258 pp.

External links

• Harry, H.W. (1985). Synopsis of the supraspecific classification of living oysters (Bivalvia: Gryphaeidae and Ostreidae. The Veliger. 28(2): 121-158.
• Salvi D. & Mariottini P. (2017 [nomenclatural availability: 2016]). Molecular taxonomy in 2D: a novel ITS2 rRNA sequence-structure approach guides the description of the oysters' subfamily Saccostreinae and the genus Magallana (Bivalvia: Ostreidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 179(2): 263-276.

Notes and References

1. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Saccostrea Dollfus & Dautzenberg, 1920. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=138300 on 2022-04-27