Device tested to translate oyster 'language'

TAKAMATSU, Japan, Dec 6 (Kyodo) - An experiment has begun this fall at Shido Bay in Sanuki, Kagawa Prefecture, to decode the ''language'' of oysters, using a device that monitors the bivalves for indications of changes in the environment.

The instrument, named ''Kai-Lingual,'' a play on the Japanese word for shellfish, ''kai,'' observes the opening and closing movements of shells, which can indicate red tide, oxygen deficiency or other seawater abnormalities that could lead to oyster deaths.

The device has been developed by a team including Tsuneo Honjo, head of the Kagawa University Seto Inland Sea Regional Research Center's Aji Marine Station in Takamatsu in the same prefecture, and Tokyo-based pearl dealer K.Mikimoto & Co.

It detects abnormalities by analyzing shell movements, which are picked up as electric signals transmitted from sensors and magnets attached to the shells.

The experiment is chiefly aimed at detecting the causes of mass-deaths of food oysters that have occasionally occurred at farms.

The method had earlier been applied to pearl oysters.

Pearl oyster farms in Ago Bay in Mie Prefecture have used the device to monitor seawater, successfully detecting red tide or oxygen deficiency.

The ''language'' of food oysters, however, has not yet been decoded as extensively as that of pearl oysters.

This has led to pearl oysters being placed among their food counterparts in Shido Bay as ''interpreters,'' as their changes in appearance in response to specific environmental conditions are known to researchers. (Kyodo)