clam id? (pic)

[Elohssa1]

I bought a small piece of LR from my LFS and it had a large clam attached to the end. It's about 21/2 inches wide and has a lot of colors.. It survived a long dry-spell out of water (1 week)... Any id???

 

[graveyardworm]

Do you know where the rock came from?

I'm guessing thorny oyster.

Might need to get some better pics though.

 

[Elohssa1]

Hi David!! Thanks for the reply.... The LR came from Tonga and it is a thick branch and the clam was on the end and perfecly hidden when closed. The piece was about 10 in long with alot of caroline algea.. If your willing I can send better pics via e-mail...Thanks again, Doug and Sally....

 

[graveyardworm]

I know very little about hitchhiking clams so I'm probably not the person to send the pics to. If you're having trouble hosting the pics on RC, then you can use a photo hosting site like photobucket.com then link the img tags here. Post them here so more people can see.

 

[Elohssa1]

No problems just quicker!

 

[pagojoe]

Yep, it's a thorny oyster. Hard to say for sure which species, but it's probably Spondylus regius. There are at least 3 species of Spondylus in Tonga, and this is probably the most common one. Spondylus linguafelis may be more common there, but has a lot more spines and they are thinner, and is usually white or mostly white.

http://www.femorale.com.br/shellphotos/thumbpage.asp?family=SPONDYLIDAE&NAV=12

Don't mind the long spines in the photos linked above, those are exceptional specimens. You can look at the other Indo-Pacific possibilites by looking through all Femorale's Spondylidae photos.

Cheers,



Don