Jumbo Scallop - Have you had experience with one this big?

[sciencemike]

I was freedive hunting for scallops in central america a few weeks ago....

I was hunting by myself in about 30 foot of water, vis was about 30 feet. I wasnt using a bag just grabbing as many scallops as i could find, when my hands got full i would pile them up underwater, then swim them in. Most scallops were easy picking, I would see them open and feeding, swim down and just twist them off the rock. Then, a normal looking scallop slightly under a ledge at about 35 foot deep, beat me in a tug-O-war. I swam to the surface as I had already been down over a minute and a half. Blowing off the victorious scallop that i couldnt get from under the ledge, I forgot about that scallop seeing as they were really everywhere. After I breathed up i dove back down to resume my hunting when i saw a dust cloud where i had been fighting the scallop, so i swam back over to give it round two.... This time i was fresh and i pulled and twisted, and finally after 30 seconds of hard work it broke free. To my shock it was unlike any scallop i had ever seen, it was a monster scallop. It weighed over 3 lbs and was 3-4 inches thick.

When my panga driver came to pick me up i showed him the scallop, and he thought i was BS'ing him. No one believed that a scallop could look like this. After all i collected maybe 10 scallops that day and all of them together were smaller than this one. Once in town the fisherman made me take the scallop around the town and show the dive shops and fishing huts. This time no one believed it was a scallop until i cut it open and showed them the muscle. Which incidentally was the tenderest and sweetest scallop i have ever eaten.

Any of you ever had experience with scallops that are 18 inches long and over 3 lbs. Heres some photos.


The moster scallop


The Meat of the scallop still attached to the broken piece of the shell

Breakfast of Champions - Scallop sashimi and soy sause

[Bill McIntyre]

Are you referring to that long fan-shaped thing? I've seen those- I think it must have been in Mexico- but I never considered them to be scallops. They are not shaped like your other scallops.

"Pen shell" comes out of the back of my brain, but I'm not at all sure if that is the correct name.

[Bill McIntyre]

I Googled pen shell and came up with this, but it describes it as a Mediterranean species.

the pen shell (pinna nobilis)

[paddythefrog]

it couldn't be a scallop, surely it's a mutant scallop due to some nuclear bomb testing in the area ?

I certainly have not, the biggest one I've seen in these waters would be some 13cm wide

[sciencemike]

Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre

I Googled pen shell and came up with this, but it describes it as a Mediterranean species.

the pen shell (pinna nobilis)

Bill,

Thanks after more inspection it is indeed a pen shell, and also a scallop. Pen Shells are in the family of scallops. Although it still seems crazy big even for pen shells, which i have seen online accounts average 6 inches

Pen shells average 6” in length
and live in soft, sandy mud with
their narrow tips downward. A
small foot spins clumps of tough
threads that keep it attached to
buried stones and broken shells.
Two varieties of pen shells are
found in this area: saw-toothed
(Atrina serrata) and rigid (A. rigida).
the rigid is distinguished by a horny
texture with 15 rows of erect, prickly
spines; the saw-toothed has small
scales and over 30 ribs.

Image from www.okeefes.org/Mollusks/Bivalves.htm

I knew it was a scallop because the inner parts were exactly the same as the smaller scallops. Yet I must say this was the best tasting scallop i have ever eaten raw.

[pauldeclercq]

I have seen these before, off Nungwi, northern zanzibar. I took one of them out, seriously difficult to get lose. (I also cut my finger in the process) The clam was identical to what I see here. I have no idea what they are called, but yes they do taste very good, I personally thought it tasted more like abalone/perlemoen than a scallop.

[Sonny B]

Looks like a nice haul of a kind of oyster and a Pen Scallop.
The Pen scallops are great eating and found in the sand near rocky structure.
The other ones you took are a kind of oyster and not nearly as good as the rock scallops or pen scallops. They have kind of an orange meat that I did not care for.

[agbiv]

These shells wash up or are found in surf off of TX but I've never found any live.

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by agbiv

These shells wash up or are found in surf off of TX but I've never found any live.

Thanks for the confirmation that I might have seen them in the Gulf of Mexico. I grew up on the Florida West Coast and lived in Texas for a while, and I had this idea that I might have seen them there, but I just didn't know for sure.

I've been diving too many places in the world, and with a thing like that shell that I never paid much attention too, I know I have seen them, but I just can't say for sure where.

Wherever I saw them, I wish I had known that they are good to eat.

[agbiv]

Yes! Seen'em off TX coast & Florida panhandle - Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach & Port St Joe area.

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by agbiv

Yes! Seen'em off TX coast & Florida panhandle - Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach & Port St Joe area.

Aha! I dove in Pensacola and Panama City when I was in flight school at Pensacola, so I probably saw them there.

[Erik]

They get pretty big up near north vancouver island: cdavis nabbed a giant when him and jimdoe2you came up for a week a few weeks back. I don't have a pic, but it was in an 8" shell and the meat was bigger than the one you posted.