Although abalone has the word "fish" in its name, it is not a fish. Abalone belongs to shellfish. Because its shape resembles a human ear, it is also called "sea ear". Abalone is a precious marine edible shellfish, known as "table gold, the crown of marine treasures", with tender meat and rich nutrition.
Growth environment and distribution area of abalone
Abalone usually grows on the seabed with low water temperature, covering the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean. It is recognized that the best producing areas are northern Japan and Mexico, and the northeast is also a traditional producing area.
Morphological characteristics of abalone
Abalone's body is covered with a thick calcareous shell, and its shell is a right-handed spiral shell. The single-walled shell of abalone is hard and right-handed, and its surface is dark green and brown. The purple, green and white colors on the inside of the shell complement each other, just like gems.
In addition, there are a series of spiral protrusions on the shell of abalone, which gradually increase from the top of the shell to the ventral surface. Some of these protrusions penetrate into holes near the end of the spiral layer, and the number of holes varies with different types.
There are 4-5 Haliotis discus hannai in northern China and 7-9 Haliotis diversicolor in southern China. China named abalone "nine-hole snail" in ancient times, which is derived from this feature.
The soft part has a big flat meat foot. The soft part is oval, yellow and white, as big as a tea bowl and as small as copper coins. Abalone is attached to rocks by this thick foot and flat sole surface, and crawls in reefs and caves. The adhesion of abalone meat feet is quite amazing.
An abalone with a shell length of 15 cm has a foot suction of 200 kg. No matter how violent the storm comes, it can't be lifted. When catching abalone, you can only take advantage of it unprepared and shovel it or turn it over in lightning speed, otherwise even if you smash its shell, you will never get it off.