Welcome to April 2024, a special pectinidae list from the collection of the late Michael Chew from Malaysia.

Pectinidae or scallops are my favourite family of bivalves. They have this familiar and endearing shape with “ears” and beautiful colours and patterns!

Alive, they can swim by opening and closing their valves. They are closely related to Spondylidae or the Thorny oysters which are actually more closely related to scallops than oysters. They are scallops that are not free living but attached themselves to substrate. We can see some scallop species actually having raise lamella that are elongate like the Spondylidae presumably to protect itself from predation due to its sedentary lifestyle. Scallops do not need this as they can make a quick escape by swimming away.

Back to this list, it contains some really exceptional specimens, even of the common species that have been collected 40~50 years ago, in the 70’s to 90’s but still retain such beautiful preservation and colour mainly due to the cleaning and storage. I stress this a lot, and most of the shells that I self-clean are only using bleach and ultrasonic cleaners. Never acid or left meat rotting on the shell. You will only be able to tell the level of preservation after 40~50 years and the rich colours and quality will be seen like these shells.

Please see that the prices are really reasonable for such quality. Buying them from wholesalers or cheap sources, I have purchased before and sold them for a few bucks, are nothing like these. Connoisseurs of the fine collection will appreciate the level of quality and preservation for these precious scallops and know the great difference.

Please enjoy these beautiful works of nature!