Abalone, in modern Chinese, has a variety of meanings. The most commonly used refers to a primitive marine shellfish, belonging to the monocoque mollusc, which has only half shell, thick, flat and wide shell, abalone is a traditional Chinese valuable ingredients, ranked among the four major sea food first. Until now, in the Great Hall of the People held a number of state banquets and large banquets, abalone is often on the list, and has become one of China's classic state banquet dishes. It has been called "the ear of the sea". It's not the same thing as the ancient "fish salted with salt".
Aidong abalone
The outside of the abalone's body is covered with a thick, calcareous shell, which is a right-spinning, conch-shaped shell. The abalone's single-walled shell is hard, with a right-handed shape and a dark greenish-brown surface. The inner side of the shell is a mixture of purple, green and white colors, and is pearly.
Additionally, on the shell of abalone, there is a row of spirally arranged protuberances that increase gradually from the top of the shell to the ventral surface. These protrusions near the end of the spiral layer of some through the holes, the number of holes with different species. There are 4-5 of them in the large disc abalone distributed in the north of China, and 7-9 of them in the mixed-color abalone distributed in the south. In ancient times in China, the abalone was named "nine-hole snail", which is derived from this characteristic of it.
The soft body part has a wide flat foot, the soft body is flat oval, yellowish-white, large like a tea bowl, small as copper coins. Abalone is relying on this thick foot and spreading metatarsal surface adsorption on top of the rock, crawling in the reef scaffolding and caves. The adhesion of the abalone's fleshy feet is quite amazing. A shell length of 15 centimeters of abalone, the foot of the suction force of up to 200 kilograms. No matter how the wind and waves attack, can not lift it up. When catching abalone, can only take advantage of its unpreparedness, in order to speed up the momentum with a shovel shovel down or will be overturned, otherwise even if it smashed its shell will not want to take it down.
The head of the abalone is very developed, and its two tentacles are very thin and long when extended. On the dorsal side of the base of each tentacle is a short protuberance, at the end of which grows the eye. Between the two antennae there is the cephalic lobe, which has a ventral surface with a forward-projecting muzzle, which has a day at its anterior end. Inside the mouth there is the powerful notochord, an organ peculiar to many shellfish, which is a chitinous band bearing many rows of small teeth, shaped like files, which the shellfish utilize to scrape and grind their food. Generally speaking, the number of small teeth of herbivorous species is more, the apex of the garden, and the number of small teeth of carnivorous species is less, but strong, the apex of which often has hooks or spines. The abalone is an herbivorous species, so it has an extremely large number of denticles on the dentary tongue.
The foot of abalone is particularly fat, divided into upper and lower parts. The upper foot has many tentacles and small mounds, which are used to feel the outside world; the lower foot is oval when it is stretched out, and the ventral surface is flat, which is suitable for attaching and crawling. We eat abalone is mainly eat its foot muscles.
The outer coat membrane of abalone has the same shape as that of the shell, and the whole of it covers the back of the body. What is different from other snails is that there is a crack on the right side of the outer coat membrane of abalone, and the position of this crack is comparable to that of the holes on the edge of the shell, and there are tentacles growing on the edge of the crack. When the abalone is active, these tentacles extend out from the hole in the shell, and the Division of taste. The presence of slits on the edge of the outer shell membrane is characteristic of primitive gastropods, like the slit snail, the famous red wengrong, and the keyhole snail. [1]?
The abalone is one of the slower growing species in the shellfish family. Starting from a fertilized egg and growing to a commercial size of 6-8 centimeters, it usually takes 1-4 years or even longer. The Chinese wrinkled abalone, for example, takes about nearly 3 years of growth to reach about 7 centimeters. The growth rate of abalone tends to decrease with age. Abalone shells will leave growth lines similar to the annual rings of trees during the growth process, and the obviousness of the growth lines is related to the season of its environment and the type of bait it feeds on. In the fast-growing season, the growth lines are obvious and wider in distance; in the slow-growing season, on the contrary, the growth lines are dense and closer in distance. Sometimes from the front of the abalone shell growth lines is not easy to directly determine its exact age, we can be attached to the shell surface of the miscellaneous algae lime worms and other things to remove clean, will be the abalone shell with an electric light to see through the wheel of their years.