Garter cone
| Garter cone | ||||||||||||
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Housing of Conus genuanus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Conus genuanus | ||||||||||||
| Linnaeus , 1758 |
The garter cone or the Garter cone snail ( Conus genuanus , " Guinean cone") is a snail from the family of cone snails (genus Conus ), which in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on the coast of West Africa is widespread.
features
Conus genuanus carries a medium-sized, moderately heavy, shiny snail shell , which in adult snails reaches 3 to 7.5 cm in length. The body is lowly conical, the outline convex. With the exception of a few flat, spiral ribs at the base and sometimes heavy axial filaments and growth strips, it is smooth. The shoulder is broad, rounded to rounded, flat or convex at the top and does not stand out clearly from the thread. The thread is low to medium high and sharply pointed, its outline straight to slightly concave. The tops of the whorls are flat to slightly convex and covered with very fine, inconspicuous spiral and axial threads. The early dealings are eroding. The case mouth is usually narrower at the shoulder than at the base, its outer lip sharp-edged, thin and slightly convex. The spindle is quite long, narrow and slightly notched on the inner lip.
The basic color of the case is pink-brown to bluish-gray, usually with broad, indistinct olive-colored bands above and below the center. The base is whitish, the area around the body is covered with about 10 to 20 spiral rows of square black lines, bars and dots, usually at least two different sizes, which alternate in different ways. The black bars often alternate in a row with white bars in which there are small round black dots. The shoulder and the whorls of the thread are drawn along the edge with rows of alternating black and white lines. There are also traces of indistinct axial oval-colored spots on the thread, while the eroded early whorls turn white. The inside of the case mouth is bluish-gray to pink-brown, mostly pale, the lip edge is often reddish-brown.
distribution and habitat
Conus genuanus is distributed in the eastern Atlantic Ocean on the coast of West Africa from the Canary Islands and Cape Verde Islands to Angola . It lives in the intertidal zone and a little below it to a depth of about 20 m on muddy and sandy surfaces.
nutrition
The feeding behavior and prey of Conus genuanus have not yet been directly observed. From the shape of the radula teeth with which the cone snails inject venom into their victims, it is concluded that the garter cone probably eats polybristles from the family of the fire bristle worms (Amphinomidae).
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] genuanus Hwass. [sic!], p. 15.
- Jerry G. Walls: Cone Shells: A Synopsis of the Living Conidae TFH Publications, Neptune (New Jersey) 1979. pp. 503-506.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas F. Duda, Alan J. Kohn, Stephen R. Palumbi (2001): Origins of diverse feeding ecologies within Conus, a genus of venomous marine gastropods. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 73, pp. 391-409.