Malea pomum (Linnaeus, 1758)
Apple tun, 70mm

Malea pomum is moderately uncommon along sandy lagoon reefs, where it buries deep in sand by day and emerges at night to hunt food on the surface of the sand. It is most often seen by divers as an empty shell.

Finding the specimen below laying out its curly sheet of pink eggs solved our long puzzle of who was responsible for these eggs we often found attached to algae on lagoon reefs.

Notice how the egg sheet follows the curve of the bottom of the foot as it is glued to the Halimeda plants.

Created 10 January 2011
Updated 12 November 2020

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