Captain's cone
| Captain's cone | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Conus capitaneus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus capitaneus | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The captain 's cone or the captain's cone snail ( Conus capitaneus ) is a snail from the cone snail family (genus Conus ) that is common in the Indo-Pacific . It feeds on erranten Vielborstern (Polychaeta).
features
Conus capitaneus bears a medium-sized to large, firm snail shell that reaches 5 to 10 cm in length in adult snails. The circumference of the body is conical, bulbous conical to broadly conical or broadly conical, the outline on the shoulder convex, further down straight or almost straight, on the left side concave towards the base. The shoulder is angled, sometimes only almost angled. The thread is low, its outline is slightly S-shaped, straight or concave. The Protoconch has three to three and a half whorls and measures a maximum of 0.9 mm. The first half of the teleoconch is covered with tubercles, the following half is smooth. The seam ramps of the Teleoconch are almost flat to slightly convex with 2 to 5 to 7 increasing spiral grooves. The circumference of the body is covered at the base with long, spiraling, often weak ribs. In almost fully grown animals, spiral rows of punctures follow the ribs at different distances, which sometimes remain in the area of the base even in small adults.
The basic color of the housing is white. The area around the body is covered with wide brown or olive-colored spiral bands, so that white bands remain on the shoulder and in the middle. The central band is delimited at its edges by dark brown markings, some of which run over the band, while the band is crossed by dark brown stripes under the shoulder. The spiral colored bands are interspersed with spiral rows of dark brown coarse dots or axial stripes of different lengths. Numerous spiral rows of tiny brown dots extend from the base to the shoulder, often only sparsely within the white bands and densely packed further forward, so that the base appears dark brown. The points are arranged axially rather than spirally during growth. The circumferences of the Protoconch are yellow, the adjacent seam ramps greenish-yellow. The later seam ramps are white with alternating broad, brown to black, radial spots, some of which extend as stripes to the area under the shoulder. The case mouth is white. The pattern persists from about 15 mm large young to adult.
The translucent to almost opaque, quite thin, but slightly thicker towards the outer lip, periostracum is yellowish to brownish olive in color and has strongly tufted spiral ribs at larger distances on the body and spiral rows of bristles close together on the seam ramps.
The foot of the snail is grayish-yellow to olive-colored or greenish-black with yellow to dark-yellowish-green sides, sometimes with white dots and black spots, whereby the color in the front part of the upper side can turn almost completely into black. The rostrum is yellowish-green to black, the antennae yellowish-green and sparsely spotted dark gray to black behind the tip. The sipho is yellowish-green and dorsolaterally strongly spotted black, ventrally, however, sparse, sometimes either completely black or black with the exception of an anterior yellowish-green section.
distribution and habitat
Conus capitaneus is distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific from the coast of East Africa ( Tanzania ) and KwaZulu-Natal via Madagascar , the Mascarene Mountains , Mauritius to Hawaii , Samoa , Tonga , Japan and Australia ( Northern Territory , Queensland , Western Australia ), but is absent in the red Sea. It lives in the intertidal zone and below, on the Philippines down to a depth of about 240 m, especially close below the intertidal zone on sand on coral reefs, but also directly on coral rock with algae, in holes in the rock and in crevices.
Development cycle
Like all cone snails, Conus capitaneus is sexually separate and the male mates with the female with his penis . The female lays her egg capsules on the underside of rocks in 2 parallel rows with about 6 capsules each. The eggs inside are about 160 µm in size, which means that the Veliger larvae swim freely for at least 27 days before they sink down and metamorphose into crawling snails .
nutrition
The prey of Conus capitaneus consists of many bristles , especially errants from the families Eunicidae and Nereididae , which it stings with its radula teeth and immobilizes with the help of poison from the poison gland .
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] capitaneus Linn., P. 40.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. p. 278.
- 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).
