''Conus caracteristicus'', common name the characteristic 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 ''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 the shell varies between 19 mm and 88 mm. The color of the shell is white, irregularly longitudinally flamed, forming two (or sometimes three) interrupted broad bands. 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 somewhat inflated, rounded at the upper part, striate below. The spire is striate.G.W. Tryon (1884) Manual of Conchology, structural and systematic, with illustrations of the species, vol. VI; Philadelphia, Academy of Natural Sciences
(described as ''Conus characteristicus'')

Distribution

This marine species occurs in the Indian Ocean off Northern

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is locate ...

, South Africa and

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

; from the Bay of Bengal to Indonesia and

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 ...

File:Conus caracteristicus 1.jpg, ''Conus caracteristicus'' Fischer von Waldheim, G., 1807 File:Conus caracteristicus 2.jpg, ''Conus caracteristicus'' Fischer von Waldheim, G., 1807 File:Conus caracteristicus 3.jpg, ''Conus caracteristicus'' Fischer von Waldheim, G., 1807

References

* Lamarck, J. B. P. A., 1810. ''Description des espèces du genre Cône''. Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle 15: 263–292 * Smith, E. A. 1877. ''Descriptions of new species of Conidae and Terebridae''. Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (4) 19: 222–231. * Kohn, A.J., 1981. ''Type specimens and identity of the described species of Conus VI. The species described 1801–1810''. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 71(3): 279–341 * Kohn, A.J., 1992. ''A chronological taxonomy of Conus, 1758–1840''. Smithsonian Institution Press: 315 pp * Röckel, D., Korn, W. & Kohn, A.J., 1995. ''Manual of the living Conidae. Volume 1: Indo-Pacific region''. 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 website

Cone Shells – Knights of the Sea
*
Holotype in MNHN, Paris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conus Caracteristicus caracteristicus Gastropods described in 1807