How do Oysters make Pearls
Unlike most of the precious objects used in jewelry, which are made from metals found in the Earth's crust, pearls are formed in living creatures. Join us as we try to answer one of the most intriguing question in the animal kingdom - how do oysters make pearls.

How are Pearls Produced by Oysters?
It is very important to know the anatomy of an oyster, and its body mechanisms to understand how oysters make pearls. The shell of the oyster is made of two parts, which are connected by an elastic ligament. The ligament facilitates opening of the shell so that the oyster can feed. As the oysters start to grow, its shell also starts increasing in size. This growing of the oyster shell is facilitated by an organ known as the mantle. The mantle uses the minerals in the oysters food to form this shell.
The inner part of the shell is lined by nacre, a material created by the mantle. Sometimes when the shell is open, a foreign substance manages to slip inside the shell and resides between the shell and the mantle. As a natural reaction to this, the oyster covers this foreign substance as a part of its self-defense mechanism. The same nacre that is used to form the shell is used to cover this substance by forming several layers over it. This eventually leads to formation of a small object which is referred to as a pearl.
Manual Assistance
Cultured pearls are formed with a little bit of manual assistance. The pearl farmer opens the shell of the oyster, cuts a small slit in the mantle and inserts a small irritant, such as a grain of sand, inside it. The oyster treats it as foreign objects and covers it with layers of nacre to form a pearl. Oysters can produce pearls in freshwater as well as saltwater. To form cultured pearls in freshwater, only cutting a slit in the mantle is required, eventually nacre is secreted because of this irritation, and a pearl is formed.
Natural pearls are rare in nature, as not all oysters necessarily produce pearls, and the formation of a single pearl takes many years. On an average any oyster takes 3 to 6 years to produce a perfect pearl. Though pearl diving has become an important commercial activity today, hundreds of oysters are killed just to obtain a single pearl.
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