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Tridacna crocea
Interesting colours and patterns of Crocea Clam - Tridacna crocea. Crocea Clam is the smallest clam in the subfamily Tridacninae and grows to a maximum shell size of 15 cm. Their colouration can be quire varied shades of blue, green, purple, gold, orange or brown, often patterned with spots, stripes or squiggles.
Spotted on Jul 28, 2019
Submitted on Aug 3, 2019
6 Comments
Yes, @Gaiai80.
You would need to dig them up or break up the coral substrate to get them, if you want to.
Thanks for the insight Albert, a strategy for being safe I assume. One have to be able to chew away coral to get to any of these :)
Thanks, @Gaia80 for your kind words and appreciation.
This Crocea Clam is also known as Boring Clam, in the sense that they are bored/digged into substrate, usually hard coral blocks and remains there permanently for the rest of their life.
Wow, what color-pattern! Your underwater photos are amazing. Are the clams intergrated in some sort of coral? Or is it part of some kind of structure created by them?
Thanks @remkinlock for your kind words and for sharing your experiences with them :)
Beautiful photo Albert. First saw these iridescent colours in the giant clams in Niue and then my daughter and I researched the symbiotic nutrition-providing microalgae creating these colours. An amazing relationship! Thanks for sharing.