经过多年的一些真正整洁的珊瑚，汤加王国终于得到了出口狂野，巨型蛤s的许可。汤加位于巨型蛤lam生物多样性的中心，其中至少有十一个自然存在于其边界内的已知物种，包括地方性物种，包括流行物种，Tridacna (tevoroa) mbalavuana,the魔鬼.
In the past couple months, a couple shipments of giant clams from Tonga have made their way to New York and Los Angeles, with the most recent delivery coming to太平洋水族农场where we were able to get a good look at some representativeTridacnaspecimens. The shipment of Tonga giant clams included at least four of the fabled Devil clams, as well as a nice assortment of a lot of the other species, with at least one odd specimen ofblue “squamosa”which defies being specifically identified.
自然，狮子对汤加巨型蛤lam的关注占据了臭名昭著的魔鬼蛤，所有这些都非常大，但具有美丽的图案，使蛤s固有的美丽超出了稀有度。这些大型标本Tridacna mbalavuanawere immediately earmarked for display aquariums in the area and we hope to follow up with the first captive specimens of these devil clams in the near future.
While everyone was busy ogling the giant Devil clams, we were really impressed with the diversity of the other giant clams species from Tonga, including some very nice black & white tiger maxima, much larger than we’ve seen in a long time, and a great deal of shape and color diversity even within the maxima clams. Once regarded as a form ofTridacna maxima,Tridacna noae泪珠蛤s were also exceptional in their color and pattern, and the teardrop pattern was especially well defined on these specimens.
Here you can see the really odd powder blue mantle of a giant clam which straddles the middle ground between squamosa and maxima clams, both in color and in pattern, and even its shell is bizarrely featured with scutes very prominent on one side and nearly absent on the other side, but this could be an artifact of where and how it was living on the natural reef.
