''Conasprella cercadensis'' is an extinct species of sea snail, a marine gastropod

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is es ...

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, group ...

, 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 ...

, cone shells or cones.Bouchet, P. (2015). Conasprella berschaueri (Petuch & R. F. Myers, 2014). In: MolluscaBase (2015). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=836466 on 2015-06-14

Description

The shell pattern consists of about 30–40 spiral lines, extending from base to shoulder; these coincide with the raised posterior edges of spiral ribs on the anterior half of the body whorl. The sutural ramp is unpigmented.Hendricks J.R. (2015). Glowing seashells: diversity of fossilized coloration patterns on coral reef-associated cone snail (Gastropoda: Conidae) shells from the Neogene of the Dominican Republic. PLoS ONE. 10(4): e0120924

Distribution

This marine species was found as a fossil in a

Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...

coral reef-associated deposit in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

References

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
cercadensis Fossil taxa described in 1917 {{Conidae-stub