[2] In 2008 Roa-Quiaoit, Kochzius, Jantzen, Zibdah & Richter identified what they believed was a new species of giant clam they called Tridacna costata,[3] however in 2011 Markus Huber and Anita Eschner examined a collection of Rudolf Sturanys specimens, held in the Natural History Museum, Vienna, that had remained not properly identified for over 100 years and discovered it was actually Tridacna squamosina.

Common for other bivalve giant clams, the T. squamosina's papillose mantle tissue varies a wide array of hues and colors, which range in various patterns.

[5] The species is distributed across the Tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific,[6] although when originally formally described it was thought to only exist in the Red Sea where it is actually rare.

An expedition of the 19th century also collected specimens of the same species in the Gulf of Aqaba and of the coast of modern day Yemen.

This idea leads scientists to believe that the species was heavily hunted nearly 100,000 years ago, when humans had only begun their occupation of the area.