Marten cone snail
| Weasel cone | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Conus mustelinus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus mustelinus | ||||||||||||
| Hwass in Bruguière , 1792 |
The Wiesel cone or marten-cone shell ( Conus mustelinus ) is a screw from the family of the cone snails (genus Conus ), which in Indopazifik is used and from Vielborstern fed.
features
Conus mustelinus carries a moderately large to large, firm to moderately heavy snail shell , which reaches 5.5 to 11 cm in length in adult snails. The circumference of the body is usually conical, the outline at the shoulder convex, straight towards the base. The shoulder is angled. The thread is low, its outline straight to concave. The Protoconch has three to three and a half whorls and measures a maximum of 0.9 mm. The first two and a quarter passages of the teleoconch are covered with tubercles. The seam ramps of the Teleoconch are flat, in some specimens slightly concave in the late whorls with 2 to 4 to 5 increasing weak or strong, often dotted spiral grooves. The circumference of the body is provided with weak, spiraling ribs at the base. In almost adults, the ribs are strong, and they are followed at quite wide intervals by spiraling dots up to the middle.
The basic color of the housing is white. The area around the body has greenish-yellow or orange-colored spiral bands that leave a band in the basic color free at the shoulder and in the middle. The band in the middle is framed with dark brown to black spots, rarely crossed and often shaded dark yellow. The band on the shoulder is crossed by dark brown axial markings. Individual spiral rows of coarse dark brown dots can appear in the shoulder and center area. The base and basal portion of the spindle are purple in young animals, which occasionally lasts into the adult stage. The circumferences of the Protoconch and the following first 3 seam ramps of the Teleoconch are white or pale yellow. The later seam ramps are white with grayish-olive to black radial spots that can extend to the shoulder area. The case mouth is translucent, but becomes opaque and white in large adults.
The thin, translucent periostracum is olive to dark brown and becomes thicker and more opaque as the snail grows. It has widely spaced spiral rows of tufts on the perimeter of the body and axial ribs with tufts on the seam ramps. On the perimeter of the body, the tufts can be limited to the area near the lips of the housing mouth.
The foot of the snail is dark olive-colored with yellow or black sides, its upper side is shaded black on the sides, dotted with black dots at both ends and can merge into olive-brown in the middle. The sole of the foot can merge into olive black in the middle. The rostrum is yellowish-gray to olive in color and often has yellow edges. The antennae are yellow or olive-colored, the sipho olive-colored to black, often with yellow edges and sometimes with individual yellow spots and sometimes with a middle and proximal section with dense black dots.
distribution and habitat
Conus mustelinus is distributed in the Indo-Pacific from the Maldives and Chagos to the coasts of Australia , the Philippines , Fijis and Japan . It lives in the intertidal zone and close below it on reefs on sand, often under dead coral rocks, but also on rocks or in caves and crevices.
nutrition
The prey of Conus mustelinus consists of many bristles, especially of the families Eunicidae and Nereididae , which it pricks with its radula teeth and immobilizes with the help of the poison glands .
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] mustelinus Hwass., P. 41.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. p. 753.
- 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).
