Scuba Dive

Odd...but tasty

What is this alien looking thing waving its tentacles at the camera?  It’s not the most graceful looking mollusk on the planet, but it very well may be the tastiest.  Though this species has changed little over the past 500 million years, you may not have come across it if you haven’t been diving on the western coast of North America. 

The northern abalone or pinto abalone, Haliotis kamtschatkana, is a species of large edible sea snail. This tasty critter is found in kelp beds along outer well-exposed coasts from Sitka, Alaska along the coast of Canada to Point Conception, California. The pinto abalone has an adult shell size of approximately 4 inches, but it can sometimes grow as large as 6 inches.  Its green-brown shell is only ugly on the outside; inside its iridescence is stunning. The northern abalone was classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2006.