---
title: Blacklip Pearl Oyster (Pinctada margaritifera)
scientific_name: Pinctada margaritifera
common_name: Blacklip Pearl Oyster
taxon: Oysters
published: 2026-08-04T10:47:54.574Z
updated: 2026-08-20T17:09:45.821Z
tags: Blacklip Pearl Oyster, Pinctada margaritifera, Oysters, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/oysters/blacklip-pearl-oyster
---

# Blacklip Pearl Oyster (*Pinctada margaritifera*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Oysters (*Ostreida*)
- **Size:** up to 30 cm
- **Depth:** 1-40 m
- **Diet:** Filter feeder
- **Activity:** Cathemeral
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral rock, drop-offs and lagoon patch reefs

## How to recognise it

- flat, rounded shell with a straight hinge line
- dark green-black exterior with pale radial rays
- interior brilliant nacre, dark band around the margin

A flat, roughly circular oyster with a straight hinge line and a shell built in overlapping layers rather than solid folds. The outside is dark green to black with pale radial rays and rows of flattened scales along the growth edges; the inside is thick, brilliant nacre, ringed by the dark band around the margin that gives the species both its English name and margaritifera, pearl-bearing. Width reaches about 30 cm (12 in), though most animals on the reef are half that. A tuft of byssal threads anchors it, so it can be detached without breaking the shell.

It attaches to coral rock, drop-offs, lagoon patch reefs and wreck structure between about 1 and 40 m (3 and 130 ft), usually singly and often tucked into a crevice with only the gape showing. Feeding is by filtration. Pearls form when a foreign particle lodges in the mantle and is walled off in nacre, and this species supported the historic Red Sea pearl fishery centered on the Dahlak Archipelago and the Farasan Islands - a trade that ran for centuries before cultured pearls ended it in the twentieth century.

## Also known as

- **English:** black-lip pearl oyster, black-lip pearl shell, black-lipped pearl oyster
- **Hebrew:** פנינית מרגליות
- **French:** Huître perlière
- **Italian:** Ostrica perlifera labbra nere
- **German:** Große Seeperlmuschel, Gemeine Perlmuschel, Schwarzlippige Perlmuschel
- **Spanish:** Madre perla labiada
- **Czech:** perlotvorka mořská
- **Japanese:** クロチョウガイ
- **Chinese:** 黑蝶珍珠蛤, 黑蝶真珠蛤
- **Russian:** Чёрногубая жемчужница
- **SLK:** perlotvorka morská

## Scientific synonyms

- *Avicula cumingii* Reeve, 1857
- *Margarita sinensis* Leach, 1814
- *Margaritifera fimbriata* Bryan, 1915
- *Margaritifera margaritifera* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Margaritifera margaritifera var. zanzibarensis* Jameson, 1901
- *Margaritiphora communis* Megerle von Mühlfeld, 1811
- *Meleagrina margaritifera* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Meleagrina nigromarginata* Saville-Kent, 1893
- *Mytilus margaritiferus* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Pinctada foliacea* Röding, 1798
- *Pteria (Margaritifera) margaritifera* (Linnaeus, 1758)
- *Pteria (Margaritifera) margaritifera var. zanzibarensis* Jameson, 1901
- *Pteria margaritifera* (Linnaeus, 1758)

## Range

Bismarck Sea, Coral Sea, Fiji, Indian Ocean, Kenya, Mozambique, Ningaloo, North Pacific Ocean, Persian Gulf, Republic of Mauritius, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Pacific Ocean, Sudan, Sulawesi Sea/Makassar Strait, Taiwan, Tanzania, Tonga, Vietnam

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/oysters/blacklip-pearl-oyster)*
*Updated: August 20, 2026*