I spent the winter of 2019 learning about the anatomy and physiology of larval and adult oysters as part of an illustration project for Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group. They wanted accurate but beautiful graphite illustrations to be used for both educational and development purposes. As many know, I am mostly a place based naturalist artist with a strong bend towards the botanical (though between bees, monarch butterflies and now oysters, you would never know that was the case!). This oyster thing was… well, if I can draw rocky shorelines, sure I can draw oyster developmental phases and shells!

The project ended up taking me not only to the Vineyard regularly (lucky me!) but to Aquaculture Research Corporation in Dennis, MA, as well as regular contact with The Marine Biology Lab at Woods Hole, University of Rhode Island and Rutgers University. Adult oysters were really pretty easy to get information on, but the veligers… not so much. Everybody knew what a 9-12 day old veliger did, what it looked like but not exactly what part was what and what each part did! It ended up being about doing map like studies to the best of my understanding, having them assessed and then going back to remap. What you see is an oyster veliger right about the time that it will settle itself on whatever comes its way to land on and growing from there.

As to skills learned, the most unexpected one was taking photographs and videos of veligers through a microscope lens with my iPhone!

There is too much to put in about shellfish aquaculture, but it is well worth seeing the process in action. As to velligers, they are pretty cute! Check ‘em out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8-6yNwoWQI

Prints of these are available through Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group. tAsk for Amandine or Emma: http://www.mvshellfishgroup.org/