Pygmy conus
| Pygmy conus | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Pygmaeconus traillii |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pygmy conus | ||||||||||||
| Puillandre & Tenorio , 2017 |
Pygmaeconus is the name of a genus of snails from the family of cone snails , which some 6 known species in the Indo-Pacific life. With ashelllength of 3 to 9 mm and the venomous teeth of less than 1 to almost 2 mm in length, they arethe smallest known representatives of the cone snails.
features
The cone snails of the genus Pygmaeconus have a very small, broad-bellied, conical, often stocky and rounded shell , which in adult snails reaches a shell length of 3 to 9 mm. The high, conical thread takes up almost a third of the entire length of the housing and has a straight or slightly convex outline. The seam ramps are flat or convex, the protoconch has few threads. The whorls of the Teleoconch are convex and completely smooth or with 1 to 2 grooves. The shoulder is rounded, the outline of the body is convex. Nodules are usually absent, but there may be a few large, rounded, and decrepit nodules. The surface of the body is sculptured with an alternating number of tiny, raised, spiral cords at regular intervals. The operculum is small. The smooth, translucent periostracum is yellowish.
The radula teeth, which are connected to a poison gland , are large in relation to the snail and almost a fifth as long as the snail shell. Their front section is much shorter than the rear section. One tooth has a barb, 3 blades and 1 small tooth. The shaft has a blunt crease while a spur is absent at the base. The radula teeth are similar to those of the California cone snail , which, unlike most cone snails, is a generalist who eats annelids, snails, mussels, fish and shrimp. The feeding behavior and prey animals of the pygmean cone snails are unknown, but based on the shape of the teeth it is assumed that they have a similarly wide range of prey, albeit in a smaller body size.
distribution and habitat
The dwarf cone snails of the genus Pygmaeconus are widespread in the Indo-Pacific and known from their localities off Australia , Papua New Guinea , Indonesia , the Philippines , Malaysia and Thailand . They live in the intertidal zone and down to depths of about 40 meters between seagrass and algae , while dead body can also be found in Karallengeröll and shell Schill.
species
The genus Pygmaeconus includes the following 6 species :
- Pygmaeconus micarius (Hedley, 1912)
- Pygmaeconus molaerivus (Dekkers, 2016)
- Pygmaeconus papalis (Weinkauff, 1875)
- Pygmaeconus traillii (A. Adams, 1855)
- Pygmaeconus visseri (Delsaerdt, 1990)
- Pygmaeconus wallacei (Lorenz & Morrison, 2004)
literature
- Nicolas Puillandre, Manuel J. Tenorio (2017): A question of rank: DNA sequences and radula characters reveal a new genus of cone snails (Gastropoda: Conidae). Journal of Molluscan Studies 83 (2), pp. 200-210, doi: 10.1093 / mollus / eyx011
