The photographs on this page show a pearl attatched to the shell of a swan mussel, Anodonta cygnea found on the River Stour near Dedham in 1992. The photographs on this page show a pearl attatched to the shell of a swan mussel, Anodonta cygnea found on the River Stour near Dedham in 1992.
The dead shell was collected with many others from flood debris on the Suffolk bank and was the only one to contain a pearl.
The pearl itself was very mis-shapen and very firmly attatched to the nacre of the inner surface of the shell.
I wonder how many other people have found similar shells in Suffolk, or indeed anywhere in East Anglia. This is the only specimen I have ever found.