Tonga to Philippines, Coral Sea and Queensland to Mascarenhas and Natal, to Red Sea, to extreme eastern Mediterranean. On hard substrate, in the infralittoral down to the mid-circalittoral. Suspension feeder.

Pecten porphyreus in J. H. Chemnitz: Neues systematisches Conchylien Cabinet, Atlas II, Nürnberg 1782-1795, plate XLVI. « Testa […] ex rubro cinnabarino et albo marmorata seu variegata, striis crassioribus 25 muricato scabris, margine plicato. » – Neues syst. vol. VII, Nürnberg 1774, p.330.

A smaller specimen, given under the epithet cristularis: « Pecten […] pallidè carneâ, rubro variegatâ, costis quatuor et viginti, rotundatis, hic illic subtiliter squamatis, interstitiis lævibus, margine cardinali valvæ superioris simplici, ingerioris cristato-crenato. » – Adams & Reeve: The zoology of the voyage of H.M.S. Samarang, under the command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher, C.B., F.R.A.S., F.G.S., during the years 1843-1846, London 1850. Drawing plate XXI, text p.74.

Left: Pecten Raffrayi in F. Jousseaume: “Coquilles marines des côtes d’Abyssinie et de Zanzibar recueillies par M. Raffray en 1873 et en 1874”, Le Naturaliste year 8, num.28, Paris 1886, p.222. « Both valves bear 24 protruded and rounded ribs, separated from each other by deep narrow grooves. On the ribs that rise mostly near the sides, there are close-set imbricated projecting squamae. Under magnification one can notice, in the furrows, two small alignments of minute scales placed on the sides and at the base of each rib. ».
 
This sculpture is drawn at right, on this Pecten pseudolima of G. B. Sowerby II in the Thesaurus conchyliorum, vol. I plates, London 1847, pl.20 fig.235: « The ribs in this species are beautifully ornamented by three rows of close, sharp, erect, slightly curved scales. » (Thes. Conch. I, text, p.78).