Gold spot cones
| Gold spot cones | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Conus aurantius |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus aurantius | ||||||||||||
| Hwass in Bruguière , 1792 |
The gold spot cones or gold cone snail ( Conus aurantius ) is a snail from the family of cone snails (genus Conus ), which in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea is common and from fire bristle worms fed.
features
Conus aurantius has a moderately large snail shell , which in adult snails can reach a length of up to 7 cm. The body is conical, the outline at the shoulder is slightly convex and otherwise straight. The shoulder is angled. The thread is high and covered with tubercles. The Teleoconch's seam ramps are concave. Half of the body around the base is covered with fine-grained, spiraling lines at intervals.
The case has an irregular, maroon to orange and white cloud pattern and is covered with broken, narrow, brown to orange spiral lines.
distribution and habitat
Conus aurantius is common in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea on the Antilles from Curaçao and Bonaire to the Virgin Islands , but is absent in Aruba. It lives in sea depths of 1.5 m to 10 m.
nutrition
The prey of Conus aurantius consists of many bristles , especially poisonous and defensive firebrist worms (Amphinomidae), which it stings with its radula teeth and immobilizes with the help of poison from the poison gland . It seems to seek out its prey less actively than Conus regius does, and rather to wait for bristle worms to pass by. The radula with the tooth acts as a harpoon, and the ringworm clings to it. If the tooth and worm come loose, the prey is lost. The paralyzed fire bristle worm, which is often longer than the snail, is swallowed whole, which can take half an hour. After a while, the snail chokes out packets of slime with undigested fire bristles (" stinging hairs ").
literature
- Alan J. Kohn: Conus of the Southeastern United States and Caribbean. Princeton University Press, Princeton (New Jersey) 2014. pp. 160-164.
- George Washington Tryon: Manual of Conchology, structural and systematic, with illustrations of the species , vol. VI; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 1884. C [onus] aurantius Hwass., P. 25.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae. TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. p. 159.
- Danker Vink (1974): A strange food preference of Conus aurantius. Hawaiian Shell News 22 (12), p. 8.
