A mysterious disease destroying French oysters has got a lot less mysterious and lot more repulsive. The delectable delicacies are dying of herpes.

Around mid-July oyster farmers in France started to complain that their one and two year old molluscs were being wiped out, with between 40% and 100% succumbing. As the LA Times noted, the country could handle a stock market crash and the president’s wife with her risqué music, “But an oyster blight? Quelle horreur!”

Now the ‘oyster crisis team’ at French marine research institute Ifremer has discovered the horrific true cause of the mass mortality. The young oysters have been so busy growing their sex organs they neglected to develop resistance to Oyster Herpesvirus type 1.

“We had a warm winter followed by a rainy spring, which caused high levels of planktonic plant life to develop,” says Ifremer spokeswoman Johanna Martin (Reuters). “This meant that the oysters were particularly well fed and spent a lot of energy developing their sexual organs to the detriment of their natural reserves, leaving them vulnerable to OsHV-1.”

There is no cure for the virus. In Liberation Sonya Faure says “better pray that the winter and next spring will not be too soft or wet”. However Ifremer researcher Tristan Renault told AFP that those oysters not killed would be resistant to the virus and could be safely eaten. Herpes resistant oyster anyone?

Image: NOAA