A lucky woman found a beautiful pearl inside a dirty-looking clam caught in a canal.

Sunee Kondee, 48, was eating the boiled seafood for lunch that his relative caught in a nearby canal in Rayong province, Thailand on August 12.

As she was enjoying the meal, she suddenly bit on something hard like a small pebble and spat out the object on her hand.

However, upon inspecting the pebble, it turned out to be a shiny white pearl that was the size of a bean and about 1cm in diameter. It had formed inside the freshwater clam, or freshwater pearl mussel.

Her brother-in-law Anupong Talaengsut who caught the clam said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when Sunee told me she found a pearl in one of the clams. I think it’s strange as none of the villagers has seen anything like this happen before.’

The family thought the gem was special so they went to a pawnshop to have it checked by a jeweller who confirmed that it was a pearl.

Elderly villagers confirmed that they have never seen pearls in clams like this as the residents would catch food in the canal and sell them but none found anything like Sunee had.

A local who lives next to the canal Homnuan Boongeud, 59, said: ‘I have been here since birth. I have never found pearls in clams so I’m shocked somebody would claim to have found something like that.’

Sunee received many offers to buy her pearl but refused to sell as she believed it is rare to find anything valuable from a clam.

She said: ‘It would be great if somebody with expertise in pearls could help me prove what exactly I have found. It was such a beautiful thing.’