Ostrea edulis Linnaeus, 1758
Barents Sea to Mediterranean, including Baltic & N. Black Seas; cultivated in California and Washington State; established self-sustaining populations are found from Nova Scotia to Rhode Island; introduced in Australia and Alaska; present in Baja California. « Cemented to hard substrates and forming dense beds from low in the intertidal to 50m » (MBSBI).

Grau de la Vieille Nouvelle, Gruissan, Occitania, S. France. 70mm. Original picture provided by A. Bertrand (FR).
– (CC BY-NC-SA) –
The left valve, attached to the substratum, contains the animal. The right valve is a plat cap.
Ostrea edulis in Forbes & Hanley: A history of British Mollusca and their shells, London 1853, via BHL.
Left valve found at low tide, Plage de l’Éventail, Saint-Malo, N. Brittany, NW. France. 120mm.
European Flat Oysters sold for consumption in a fish market at Rennes, E. Brittany.
On rock at the base of the jetty, seaside, Šilo harbour, eastern coast of Krk island, Primorje-Gorski Kotar Comitat, N. Croatia. Original picture provided by S. Pav for iNaturalist.
– (CC BY-NC) –
Above and below:
Gerontic Bronze Age specimen collected at 3m deep inside the sediment, bottom at 1m, Vranjic Bay, north of Split, S. Croatia. Size about 120mm. Notice how the tool has rip open the anterior margin of the left valve (which is cemented to the substract) in order to allow the blade to access the adductors. Original pictures provided by N. Lete (HR) – (CC BY-NC-SA).
Unfortunately, in gerontic oysters, there is much more shell than flesh.

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