(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
Loading ...Well, we have only had the opportunity to see the first ever T. maxea hybrid clam in pictures. Well now at MACNA, we were wowed with its presence. Chris Bueschel of Reefkoi Corals had the pleasure of showing us this amazing specimen. For its size, it measured at around 2.5″ in length. A delicate baby, to say the least. The price tag? 129$, not too shabby considering the rarity of the clam species. Here she is in its glory:
Trained by the thirteenth ring master of the Sian Xiuang Coral Temple. Currently is apprenticing the art of Acropora shaping in the ancient tradition of Ninja Fragging. Known as the SPS hero!
Arg, you guys are killing me with your tiny photos! I want big honkin’ photos so I can see detail please!
Make a donation and I’m sure they would oblige!
I cant believe people are still falling for this. Its a cultured crocea. The only thing special about it is the inflated price. Croceas will grow scutes all the way down to the umbo if they are not embedded in rock like they are in the wild.
Chris, if this is the case, please provide us and the readers some more scientific information. We will love to hear your side.
Its kind of been beaten to death on the reefbuilders blog so im just going to copy over some key points from that blog and a few conversations i had about this with James Fatherree and Dave P. from Pacific Aqua Farms.
“As stated above the clam pictured is a crocea. I can think of one very good reason to claim its a hybrid, higher prices:)
Croceas and maximas are found together in their natural ranges, if they were going to hybridize they would have done it thousands of years ago yet there is not one genetic test to prove this. Also there is no scientific literature documenting this has ever been done.
Now if someone was going to attempt to hybridize Tridacnids you would think they would start with two clams that are closely related, right? T. maxima and T. crocea are not each others closest relatives. T. croceas closest relative is T. squamosa. Crocea and squamosa diverged in the late Miocene (5.3 to 11.6 million years ago) Maxima diverged from the other Chametrachea’s in the middle Miocene (11.6 to 15.9 million years ago) Thats quite a large gap and plenty of time for them to have inter breed in the wild yet none have ever been found.
As for the well documented T. derasa and T. squamosa hybrids, where is the documentation? ive never found any. And again you would think they would use closely related species. Derasa and squamosa are about a far apart as you can get, squamosa being a Chametrachea and derasa being a Tridacna.
This is marketing hype, nothing more, and the seller is relying on people to just take their word and not actually try to id the clam. By simply looking at the shell instead of an unusual mantle pattern you can see that it is a crocea.
Its all in the shell folks
Look up Calumpong et. al 1993 They tried to do it with H. hippopus and H. porcellanus but it didn’t happen. They got a few odd looking clams but they did genetic testing on them and found that they were actually self fertilized, the H. hippopus they used fertilized its self.
These are Bretts words from the other blog.
“these clams are definitely hybrids, they require no cites permits to ship( they are recognized by the vanuatu government, which is watched over by the australian government, and by the us fish and wildlife service here in california as hybrids.) ”
then he says
“they are imported as cultured maximas and are perfectly legal. ”
So if they dont require permits because they are recognized as “hybrids” why were the imported as maximas? -1
Heres another
“i never gave them a name, the retailers did”
then he says
“i have called them hybrids because the fisheries biologist that spawned them told me what was in the tank when he spawned them.”
So which is it Brett, did the retailers give them the name or you? -2
Take a look through here http://www.picsbase.com/james/default.asp?catID=303
There’s some clams (croceas) that look a lot like some of these clams.
Oh and yes ive seen white clams, clams direct had about 6 all white maximas for sale last week.
And Jake it made me laugh when you said whoever is doubting it must not have seen a lot of clams
Its the fact that i have seen a lot of clams that makes it so easy to tell that these are croceas. Add that to Brett contradicting himself every time he says something and he gets a big 0 for credibility. He’s fooling you all not me 
No doubt they are nice, Ive already said that. My “tone” is because Brett is either being purposely deceitful or he (or you) is not very experienced with clams. Call them what they are, dont pimp them as something they are not.
Claiming to have hybrids is something to be taken seriously. Its been tried before in a laboratory setting and failed and no hybrids have ever been found in the wild.
Ive corresponded with many people about this and the feelings are the same. You’ve corresponded with some of the same people and they have expressed the same to you as me.
Heres some of the feed back ive received
“We raised tens of thousands of these clams while I was living in the Solomons Islands. They are crocea. The mantle colors are very typical for wild and cultured crocea clams from the Solomon area which is very close to Vanuatu. The shells look like a typical cultured crocea that has not been allowed to bore into rock. From the wild they will not look like this as they always bore into rock which keeps the shell sides smooth and the clam looking more slim. Cultured crocea will have shell scutes and have a a more oval shape than the wild collected clams. Sorry for anyone that wants them to be a hybrid but they are very typical cultured crocea. The hybrid label is a marketing ploy to try and move the light colored and gold crocea. When we were raising them we had to lower the price by almost half to sell the clams with these mantel colors, everyone wanted the blue and green ones, brown and white ones were hard to move and we had to lower the price. Brilliant move to call them rare hybrids, raise the price, and make a market for the common ones. When our new crocea are big enough for market I will keep this brilliant marketing in mind.
Dave P.”
“Hey Chris – I’ve already been through this with Jake (see below). I asked him for the supplier’s info in my last message to him – but never heard back.
You’ve seen the literature, so you know as well as I do that these aren’t likely to be hybrids. I also think you’re spot-on to think that a cro/max hybridization would be far less likely to work than hip/porc (which didn’t work). Kind of funny to see that someone posted that max/squa hybrids are well-known or common ir something like that! NEVER HEARD OF IT!
Anyway, for what it’s worth, if someone asks – tell them that both I and Daniel Knop agree that there’s no such thing as hybrids – just difficult to ID clams.
Of course – what if we’re wrong??? That would be pretty cool wouldn’t it. I won’t lose any sleep over it though…
Take it easy amigo,
James Fatherree”
I had one just like that until my Peppermint shrimp pestered it to death.
In my honest opinion it is just another Crocea, this is a write up I did on the matter.
http://www.reef-geeks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7
Thanks for the link skinz. I am going to do a followup post on this afterwards. Check back!