A Virginia Beach woman is happy as a clam after finding a rare 41/2-carat lavender pearl in a littleneck purchased at the Great Machipongo Clam Shack in Nassawadox.

"I bit down on it and I pulled it out and said, 'Look at this,'" said Kathleen Morelli.

Billy Bowen of B&E Seafood in Willis Wharf, who has been in the clam-growing business for a quarter century, said he has never found a pearl in a clam grown through aquaculture like the one Morelli bit into.

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