Fig cone
| Fig cone | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Conus figulinus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus figulinus | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The fig cone or fig cone snail ( Conus figulinus ) is a snail from the cone snail family (genus Conus ), which is widespread in the Indo-Pacific . It feeds on Vielborstern (Polychaeta).
features
Conus figulinus has a medium-sized to large, firm to heavy snail shell , which in adult snails reaches 4.5 to 13.5 cm in length. The circumference of the body is bulbous, conical to broadly bulbous, conical or pear-shaped, the outline at the apex is convex, straight to slightly concave towards the base, the right side is sigmoid. The shoulder is rounded. The thread is usually low, its outline alternating S-shaped or concave. The seam ramps of the Teleoconch are flat to slightly convex with many spiral stripes. The third of the body around the base is covered with grooves running spirally between ribs and cords at alternating intervals.
The basic color of the housing varies from yellowish or orange to reddish to grayish or blackish-brown. The area around the body is covered with continuous, occasionally dashed or dotted brown or black lines that are spiraling at alternating intervals and are missing within a narrow band below the shoulder edge. This area under the shoulder can be clearly different in color from the adjacent area around the body and is usually yellow to dark reddish-brown. The seam ramps of the Teleoconch are orange-brown to blackish-brown and darker than the circumference of the body, occasionally with alternating broad, irregular radial stripes. The case mouth is white to bluish-white.
The translucent to opaque, either uniformly rough or covered with raised spiral ribs periostracum is brown. The operculum is egg-shaped. Radular teeth with an adapical barb opposite to a blade; serration longer than blade (Peile, 1939).
The radula teeth, which are connected to a poison gland, have a barb on the tip and a cutting edge on the opposite side, with small teeth extending beyond its length.
distribution and habitat
Conus figulinus is distributed in the Indo-Pacific from the coast of KwaZulu-Natal and Tanzania via Madagascar , the Mascarene Mountains , Mauritius , India , Indonesia and the Philippines to Fiji , New Caledonia , the Solomon Islands , Vanuatu , Japan and Australia ( Queensland ), but is absent in the red Sea. It lives in the intertidal zone and a little below in half or fully protected places on very fine sand, often between vegetation.
Development cycle
Like all cone snails, Conus figulinus is sexually separate and the male mates with the female with his penis . The female lays clutches in which the first 5 capsules contain neither eggs nor hatchings and are buried in the soft substrate, whereby the remaining capsules have an anchoring. The capsules form an irregularly branching clutch to which the female attaches further capsules apparently by chance. The surface of the capsules is regularly grooved. The buried empty capsules are about 16 to 19 mm long and 7 to 12 mm wide and vary in shape. The egg-containing capsules are about 18 to 19 mm long and 11 to 13 mm wide and in Sri Lanka contain about 5700 to 8600 eggs per capsule, one egg being about 190 to 210 µm in size. From this it is concluded that the Veliger larvae swim freely for at least 23 days before they sink down and metamorphose into crawling snails .
nutrition
The prey of Conus figulinus consists of Vielborstern he with his Radulazähnen stands and using its Gifts from the venom gland immobilized.
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] figulinus Linn., P. 16.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. p. 470.
- 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).
