''Conus aurantius'', common name the golden 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.

Distribution

This marine snail occurs off the

Netherlands Antilles nl, In vrijheid verenigd"Unified by freedom" , national_anthem = , common_languages = Dutch English Papiamento , demonym = Netherlands Antillean , capital = Willemstad , year_start = 1954 , year_end = 2010 , date_start = 15 December , ...

and off the Virgin Islands.

Description

The maximum recorded shell length is 70.4 mm.Welch J. J. (2010). "The "Island Rule" and Deep-Sea Gastropods: Re-Examining the Evidence". '' PLoS ONE'' 5(1): e8776. . The shell has an elevated, tuberculated spire. The surface is irregularly clouded with chestnut or orange and white, and minutely marked with interrupted narrow brown or orange revolving lines, more or less broken up into articulations. Upon the lower half of 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 ...

these lines become striae, and are distantly, minutely granular.G.W. Tryon (1884) Manual of Conchology, structural and systematic, with illustrations of the species, vol. VI; Philadelphia, Academy of Natural Sciences
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Habitat

Minimum recorded depth is 1.5 m. Maximum recorded depth is 10 m.

References

* 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

External links

The ''Conus'' Biodiversity website

Cone Shells – Knights of the Sea
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conus aurantius aurantius Gastropods described in 1792