E23: Reefs built by a new species of oyster, instead of being built by corals!

Dr. Graham Oliver is an Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum of Wales in the UK. He talks to me about his paper published in the June 15 issue of the ZooKeys in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of reef-building oyster!

We discuss oyster-built versus coral=built reefs, cementing bivalves (true oysters), oyster clumps that look like cows, whether this new species is invasive to the Arabian Gulf, the difficulty in identifying oysters, and the reluctance to challenge orthodoxy!

The title of the paper is “Molecular and morphological systematics of a new, reef-forming, cupped oyster from the northern Arabian Gulf: Talonostrea salpinx new species.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/66992/

To learn more about Dr. Graham Oliver, visit his website: https://museum.wales/staff/112/Graham-Oliver/