BALL LIGHTNING

I agree that the blue-spotted  T. squamosa are very cool Tridacnids! Fatherree mentions them in his recent article about visiting an Indonesian clam farm. He covers their rarity stating, “They also had lots of blue Tridacna squamosa clams on hand, something not seen very often in the U.S. I was quite surprised when they told me that about 10% of the squammies they raise are blue, meaning they aren’t rare at all – just rare in the U.S. market.”

I wanted to point out that while they may be rare for the US, these clams are likely not as rare as many commonly believe.

While I respect Fatheree’s observations about blue squamosas at the farm, I keep tabs on livestock all over the world. No matter how you slice it dice it, blue Tridacna squamosa are rare in Europe, Japan and North America and most of the specimens I’ve tracked down have been inside the US.

While I agree that true blue Squamosa’s are rare in the USA and other parts of the world they were being farmed in Australia for a time and for all I know they still could be. They were very common the last I heard “which was about 2 years ago” in Australia, I know many reefers from there who had them and just loved to rub it in because I couldn’t get one…. I did hear that it was a university there that was farming them and the last I heard they lost a whole batch of them due to a power outage. They were available for approx $300 US for a 3/4″ clam but CITES laws restricted them from coming to the USA.

Good to know. Thanks for the response Jake. It’s helpful to know just how rare a species/coloration is in the Hobby. It seems everyone is eager to tout their animals as rare when only some truly are.