''Conus excelsus'', commonly known as the excelsior cone or illustrious cone, is a species of predatory

sea snail Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...

, a marine

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

in the family Conidae, the cone snails.Bouchet, P. (2015). Conus excelsus G. B. Sowerby III, 1908. In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=426492 on 2015-06-07

Shell description

The shell has a very high

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

, with a size varying between 28 mm and 102 mm, compared to most cone shells, and thus it is exceptionally long relative to its width. This, and its overall rarity, makes it desirable to shell collectors. Its coloration consists of orangish to yellow pattern on a white background.

Distribution

''Conus excelsus'' is an Indo-Pacific species found principally around the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, but also as north as southern Japan and as far east as

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

and the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

. it also occurs off

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, AustraliaConus excelsus Sowerby iii, 1908 - Record: CONUS BIODIVERSITY WEBSITE CATALOGUE
/ref> The species is rare but not endangered.

References

* Brazier, J.W. 1894. ''A new Cone, Conus pulcherrimus Brazier, described from Tanna, New Hebrides.'' Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 2 9: 189 * Sowerby, G. B., III. 1908. ''Description of a new species of the genus Conus''. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 8, 1:465-466, fig. 95. * Cotton, B.C. 1945. ''A Catalogue of the Cone Shells (Conidae) in the South Australian Museum.'' Records of the South Australian Museum (Adelaide) 8(2): 229-280 * Shikama, T. & Habe, T. 1968. ''A new Japanese cone, Turriconus nakayasui with reference to Embrikeana stupa group.'' Venus 26(3-4): 57-60 * , 38 figs * 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.
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

*http://www.coneshells-am.ru/ Cone Shells - Knights of the Sea *

Gallery

File:Conus excelsus 1.jpg, ''Conus excelsus'' Sowerby, G.B. III, 1908 File:Conus excelsus 2.jpg, ''Conus excelsus'' Sowerby, G.B. III, 1908 {{Taxonbar, from=Q2047925 excelsus Gastropods described in 1908 Molluscs of the Philippines