Abalone is also referred to bogeo (鰒魚) in Jasaneobo (Report on the Fish Species of Heuksan Island), seokgyeolmyeong (石決明) in Bonchogangmok (General List of Herbal Medicine), and gugongna (九孔螺) (shellfish with nine holes).
The abalone shell length is over 10cm long and typically rounded.
It has a small, rear spire,
mainly consisting of the spiraling pattern with a row of holes.
These holes are blocked except for the posterior ones, which are the openings for venting water and excrement. Usually, several animals, or plants, are attached to the exterior of the shell. When you remove them, you can see the shell is lined, or has wrinkles parallel to the direction of its growth, which varies per abalone.
The lines can be almost flat or covered with a blackish brown epidermis. The shell also opens wide with an intense pearl glimmer.
The flesh of abalones is covered with the shell and is connected to the shell through the adductor muscle, around which ganglions are developed.
The foot is large and broad and the head has a pair of tentacles and eyes. Abalones also have a pair of gills and a pair of auricles of the heart that are symmetric.
They live offshore from the low-water line, five to 50 meters deep, around an island or between rocks, and prefer clean areas of sea where marine plant life grows in abundance.
Abalones are gonochoristic, with an undeveloped external genitalia. As an oviparous animal, they lay eggs from late autumn to early winter and inseminate.
The genital gland of a male abalone is whitish yellow, while females are green.
Differing from species to species, the shell grows approximately two to three centimeters per year. Abalones feed on kelp, arame, sea mustard, ecklonia cava, green laver, and other sea life.
They have been considered a delicacy among marine products from long ago, and their annual haul from the shallow sea amounts to 450M/T with an annual harvest reaches as much as 80M/T.
In the 1960s, the infant abalone cultivation facility of the National Institute of Fisheries Science began producing spats, distributing them to abalone farmers since 1974.
Abalone farmers raise abalones in the sea, amid recent, new attempts at farming.
In South Korea, there are six general species, including, Haliotis discus hannai (living in cold currents), Haliotis discus (living in warm currents), Haliotis gigantean, Haliotis sieboldii, Haliotis diversicolor aquatilis, and Haliotis diversicolor supertexta.