Letter cone
| Letter cone | ||||||||||||
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Conus litteratus , Reunion |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus litteratus | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The letter cone , tiger cone or the letter cone snail ( Conus litteratus ) is a snail from the family of cone snails (genus Conus ), which is widespread in the Indo-Pacific . It feeds on many bristles of the family Capitellidae .
features
Conus litteratus carries a moderately large to large, firm to heavy snail shell that reaches 6 to 17 cm in length in fully grown snails. The body is conical, the outline almost straight, sometimes convex under the shoulder. The base is moderately pointed. The shoulder is sharply angled. The thread is low, its outline mostly S-shaped. The seam ramps of the middle and late whorls of the teleoconch are concave with 3 to 4 to 6 increasing spiral grooves, which are often weak or fade away. The body is almost completely smooth.
The basic color of the housing is white. As a rule, 3 yellowish-orange bands run around the last circumference of the body in the middle and in each third to the apex and to the base. Spiral running rows of blackish-brown, medium-sized, round to square, sometimes axially elongated or arrow-shaped spots extend from the base to the shoulder. The base and the siphonal fasciole are bluish-brown. The teleoconch's seam ramps have blackish-brown, curved, axial stripes. The case mouth is white, usually with a bluish-brown edge at the base. The alternately thick, translucent to opaque, velvety to rough periostracum is brown to blackish-brown.
The top of the foot is pink to reddish-brown in front, on the side and behind the operculum , otherwise gray to beige with white radial lines. The leading edge has densely packed black axial stripes. In the middle section, a black dotted line runs in front of the edge. The sole of the foot is reddish-brown or gray with pink-cream-colored to brown spots. The rostrum is pink, as are the antennae, but with a white tip and gray spots. The sipho is brownish-red, changes to pink or purple in the distal direction and is dotted with white, black and dark red.
distribution and habitat
Conus litteratus is common in the Indo-Pacific off Tanzania , Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands as well as in the Pacific Ocean , but is absent in the Red Sea and around Hawaii. It lives a little below the intertidal zone down to a depth of about 50 m on fine to coarse sand, scree and schill , sand with vegetation and also between very dense plant communities.
Development cycle
Like all cone snails, Conus litteratus is sexually separate, and the male mates with the female with his penis . The female attaches basal plates with numerous strongly wrinkled and finely notched egg capsules to the substrate. The eggs in it are around 201 to 222 µm in size, from which it is concluded that the Veliger larvae swim freely for at least 21 to 23 days before they sink down and metamorphose into crawling snails .
Diet and predators
The prey of Conus litteratus consists exclusively of bristles , especially those of the Capitellidae family , which it pricks with its radula teeth and immobilizes with the help of the poison from the poison gland .
Conus marmoreus is an important predator of Conus litteratus .
literature
- George Washington Tryon: Manual of Conchology, structural and systematic, with illustrations of the species , vol. VI; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 1884. C [onus] literatus Linn., P. 10.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. p. 647.
- Dieter Röckel, Werner Korn, Alan J. Kohn: Manual of the Living Conidae Vol. 1: Indo-Pacific Region . Verlag Christa Hemmen, Wiesbaden 1995. The texts on the individual cone snail species of the Indo-Pacific are published on The Conus Biodiversity website with the permission of the authors (see web links).
