''Conasprella insculpta'', common name the engraved cone, is a species of
sea snail
Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the ...
, a marine
gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...
mollusk in the
family Conidae
Conidae, with the current common name of "cone snails", is a taxonomic family (previously subfamily) of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Conoidea.
The 2014 classification of the superfamily Conoidea, groups onl ...
, the
cone snails
A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex.
A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines ...
and their allies.
Like all species within the genus ''Conasprella'', these cone snails are
predatory and
venomous. They are capable of "stinging" humans, therefore live ones should be handled carefully or not at all.
Description
The size of the shell varies between 18 mm and 66 mm.
Distribution
This marine species occurs off Western
Thailand;
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
,
Papua New Guinea, the
Philippines, the
South China Sea, Taiwan and off the
Northern Territory, Australia.
References
* Kiener, L.C. 1845. ''Spécies général et Iconographie des coquilles vivantes, comprenant la collection du Muséum d'histoire Naturelle de Paris, la collection de Lamarck, celle du Prince Massena (appartenant maintenant a M. le Baron B. Delessert) et les découvertes récentes des voyageurs.'' Paris : Rousseau et Baillière Vol. 2.
* Reeve, L.A. 1849. ''Monograph of the genus Conus.'' pls 4–9 in Reeve, L.A. (ed). Conchologia Iconica. London : L. Reeve & Co. Vol. 1.
* Shuto, T. 1969. ''Neogene gastropods from Panay Island, the Philippines.'' Memoires of the Faculty of Science, Kyushu University 19(1): 1–250
* Hinton, A. 1972. ''Shells of New Guinea and the Central Indo-Pacific.'' Milton : Jacaranda Press xviii 94 pp.
* Cernohorsky, W.O. 1978. ''Tropical Pacific marine shells''. Sydney : Pacific Publications 352 pp., 68 pls
* Röckel, D., Korn, W. & Kohn, A.J. 1995. ''Manual of the Living Conidae. Volume 1: Indo-Pacific Region''. Wiesbaden : Hemmen 517 pp.
Puillandre N., Duda T.F., Meyer C., Olivera B.M. & Bouchet P. (2015). ''One, four or 100 genera? A new classification of the cone snails.'' Journal of Molluscan Studies. 81: 1–23
External links
The ''Conus'' Biodiversity websiteCone Shells – Knights of the Sea
*
Syntype in MNHN, Paris
insculpta
Gastropods described in 1847
{{Conidae-stub