Biogeographic distribution

Considering that C. biunguiculatus lives within the Black-Lipped Pearl Oyster, it's biogeographic distribution is likely the same as that of the oyster. Given this, it is logical that C. biunguiculatus are most abundant in the areas that P. margaritifera are most abundant. This area being Eastern Polynesia. The habitat of C. biunguiculatus does, however, extend to the Gulf of California and the Mediterranean Sea and across the Northern coast of Australia.  Evidence that the biogeographic distribution of genus Conchodytes extends beyond the coast of Australia is found in the fact examples of the species have been found in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (DeGrave 1999), South China (Xin-Zheng 2002), the Netherlands (Fransen 1994), and Madagascar (Hipeau-Jacquotte 1974).


Image 11: The biogeographic distribution of P.margaritifera. Given that C. biunguiculatus live inside these oysters it standsto reason that their biogreographic distribution is the same. Image courtesy of discoverlife.org

Image 12: The current documented biogeographic distributionof C. biunguiculatus. Image courtesy ofdiscoverlife.org