Question: is there a type of mussel that has a pearl in it and if so what is the name of it

Karen answered on 5 Nov 2018:

Yes there is! It’s simply called the freshwater pearl mussel. It’s called “freshwater” because it likes to live in clean rivers, rather than in the sea which has lots of salt in it! Pearls will grow when a mussel accidently ends up with a parasite (a nasty bug) or a grain of sand inside it’s shell that it doesn’t want. The mussel wants to protect itself so it surrounds the unwanted grain with layers of a substance called “nacre” that hardens and form a pearl. I find it funny that precious pearls are made because the mussel is irritated! I’ve only seen two pearls during my research and they’ve been really small, only one freshwater pearl mussel out of every 10,000 will grow a pearl. It’s also against the law to fish mussels for pearls, because you have to kill them to look inside, so we like to keep an eye out for anyone that might be thinking of doing that!