Byssus

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Byssus

 

(1) An excretion of the byssal gland, found in the so-called feet of many bivalve mollusks. Immediately upon expulsion, byssus hardens and forms durable silky filaments by which mollusks fasten themselves to underwater objects. In antiquity a special cloth, vysson, was prepared from the byssus excreted by the large mollusk pinna.

(2) A roe disease of freshwater fish caused by certain fungi of the genera Saprolegnia and Achy la.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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The percentage of oysters lacking byssi in this group was 4.1%.
All individuals in the 30-mo-old oyster group had byssi with diameters ranging from 4.0 mm to 14.8 mm and a mean of 8.6 [+ or -] 1.7 mm.
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SHELL MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS AND THE BYSSUS DIMENSIONS IN THE WINGED PEARL OYSTER PTERIA PENGUIN (RODING, 1798) CULTIVATED IN SANYA, HAINAN ISLAND, CHINA
In this group, the oysters settled firmly on the wire with their byssi and had to be cut down for measurement, once they were cut down, they were unable to return to the original wire collectors and thus had to be removed, which made estimation of survival rate difficult.
Growth of winged pearl oyster (Pteria Penguin) juveniles: a comparison of wire collector culture and circle net culture

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