What's inside a clam? A retractable foot, a siphon for sucking up water, powerful muscles, and, sometimes, a pearl. And you thought ... mollusk that's encased in a shell made of two valves ...

To culture freshwater mussels, workers slightly open their shells, cut small slits into the mantle tissue inside both shells ... old Buddhas are not true pearls but shell mabes.

Getty A couple who found a pearl inside a clam while on a date years ago has turned the gemstone into a precious piece of jewelry. Ken Steinkamp and Sandy Sikorski were dining at a Rhode Island ...

One reason quahog shell jewelry is not common ... But don’t expect to find a pearl inside these shells. Only about one in a million quahog shells produce pearls, he says, and of those, few ...