Orgy in Texel harbor: oysters experience sultry nights
Pollution, thought Texel local Sytske Dijksen. Because the water in the NIOZ harbor had turned milky white. Who had dumped rubbish into the water here? But no, the cause of the murky water is one hundred percent natural. All the oysters in the harbor are ejaculating at the same time, and that sperm is floating through the water with the eggs.
The love life of the oyster is a solitary affair. They release their eggs and sperm cells into the water. There, the two meet, become a larva together and form a shell that slowly sinks to the bottom. And that release of sperm and eggs into the water is currently happening in the NIOZ harbor on Texel.
The water looks like milk, it contains so much sperm. Experts refer to it as an ‘orgy’ in the Texel harbor. ‘An oyster produces 1 to 100 million eggs,’ Sytske now knows. The oysters release their sperm by briefly opening their shells and quickly closing them again. Not all of that will become oysters; most of the sperm is eaten by sea creatures that love it.
Sultry feelings
And conversely: do you like oysters? According to Casanova, they are aphrodisiac – and he would know – but it remains to be seen whether that is true. Is it due to the zinc in oysters? Or the amino acids? And if so: where do those oysters get their sultry feelings from?
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Photo: Sytske Dijksen
