''Conus praecellens'', common name the admirable 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 co ...

and their allies. Like all species within the genus ''Conus'', these 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 an adult cone varies between 20 mm and 63 mm. The shell is pear-shaped, broad and angulated at the shoulder, contracted towards the base. The

body whorl The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk. In gastropods In gastropods, the b ...

is closely sulcate throughout, the sulci striate The intervening ridges of the rounded spire are carinate, concavely elevated, The acute apex is striate. The color of the shell is whitish, obscurely doubly banded with clouds of light chestnut, and the spire is maculated with the same. This is a variable species, yet two distinct forms are recognized: (1) sowerbii form, Reeve, 1849 (a thicker, darker, and more densely spotted form with 2 protoconch whorls), and (2) aliguay form, Olivera & Biggs, 2010 (2.5 pearly white smooth protoconch whorls, more slender, higher spire, rounded shoulders, lighter colored).Biggs, J. S., Watkins, M. Showers Corneli, P. and Olivera, B. M. (2010). Defining a clade by morphological, molecular, and toxinological criteria: distinctive forms related to Conus praecellens A. Adams, 1854 (Gastropoda: Conidae). Nautilus 124:1–19. The sowerbii form is the most common form, and until the late 1990s was the only form typically found and in private collections.

Distribution

This marine species has a wide distribution. It occurs in the Indian Ocean off Madagascar,

Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...

, Somalia, India, West Thailand and Western Australia; in the Pacific Ocean from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

to the Philippines and Melanesia (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu).

References

* Sowerby, G.B. (1st) 1833. ''Conus''. pls 24–37 in Sowerby, G.B. (2nd) (ed). The Conchological Illustrations or coloured figures of all the hitherto unfigured recent shells. London : G.B. Sowerby (2nd). * Sowerby, G.B. (2nd) 1841. ''The Conchological Illustrations or coloured figures of all the hitherto unfigured recent shells''. London : G.B. Sowerby (2nd) 200 pls. * 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. * Sowerby, G.B. (2nd) 1857. ''Thesaurus Conchyliorum.'' Vol. 3 pp. 16–20. * Sowerby, G.B. (2nd) 1870. ''Descriptions of forty-eight new species of shells''. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1870: 249–259 4 * Brazier, J. 1877. ''Continuation of the Mollusca of the Chevert Expedition, with new species''. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 1(4): 283–301 * Habe, T. 1964. ''Shells of the Western Pacific in color''. Osaka : Hoikusha Vol. 2 233 pp., 66 pls. * Shuto, T. 1969. ''Neogene gastropods from Panay Island, the Philippines''. Memoires of the Faculty of Science, Kyushu University 19(1): 1–250 * Salvat, B. & Rives, C. 1975. ''Coquillages de Polynésie.'' Tahiti : Papéete Les editions du pacifique, pp. 1–391. * Cernohorsky, W.O. 1978. ''Tropical Pacific Marine Shells.'' Sydney : Pacific Publications 352 pp., 68 pls. * Wilson, B. 1994. ''Australian Marine Shells. Prosobranch Gastropods''. Kallaroo, WA : Odyssey Publishing Vol. 2 370 pp. * Röckel, D., Korn, W. & Kohn, A.J. 1995. ''Manual of the Living Conidae. Volume 1: Indo-Pacific Region''. Wiesbaden : Hemmen 517 pp. * Filmer R.M. (2001). ''A Catalogue of Nomenclature and Taxonomy in the Living Conidae 1758 – 1998''. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden. 388pp. * Tucker J.K. (2009). ''Recent cone species database''. September 4, 2009 Edition * Tucker J.K. & Tenorio M.J. (2009) ''Systematic classification of Recent and fossil conoidean gastropods''. Hackenheim: Conchbooks. 296 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

Gallery

File:Conus praecellens 1.jpg, ''Conus praecellens'' Adams, A., 1854 File:Conus praecellens 2.jpg, ''Conus praecellens'' Adams, A., 1854 File:Conus praecellens 3.jpg, ''Conus praecellens'' Adams, A., 1854 File:Conus praecellens 4.jpg, ''Conus praecellens'' Adams, A., 1854

External links

The ''Conus'' Biodiversity website

Cone Shells – Knights of the Sea
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conus Praecellens praecellens Gastropods described in 1855