PMC

High-spired Conusspecies previously postulated to be related to Conus praecellens : Top from left: Conus acutangulus , “typical form”, Conus acutangulus , “deep-water form”, Conus nereisMiddle from left: Conus praecellens , “Aliguay form”, Conus praecellens , “sowerbii form”, Conus andremenezi , new species, Conus pagodus , Bottom from left: Conus miniexcelsus , new species, Conus rizali , new species, Conus arcuatus. All of the specimens shown are from the Philippines, except for Conus arcuatus.

A phylogenetic tree showing the large clade of Conus encompassing all lineages that are fish-hunting (underlined) and snail-hunting (checked). Well-established worm-hunting lineages are boxed. δ-conotoxins have been characterized from the nine species figured, including the worm-hunting Conus tessulatus (red arrow). In this work, we investigated the venom of Conus ateralbus (shown by the thick red arrow), which is in the Kalloconus lineage. This tree was adapted with permission from Puillandre et al. (2014) [], [Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.], [Elsevier Inc.], [2014]. Species discussed in this study whose shells are figured are (from top to bottom): Conus bullatus (Textilia); Conus striatus (Pionoconus); Conus ermineus (l) and Conus purpurascens (r) (Chelyconus); Conus tessulatus (l) and Conus eburneus (r) (Tesseliconus); Conus textile and Conus gloriamaris (Cylinder); Conus ateralbus (Kalloconus).

Ten different cone snails. Shown are the shells of ten Conus species including, top row: the cloth-of-gold cone, Conus textile; the cone of the magi, Conus magus. Second row, left to right: the circumcision cone, Conus circumcisus; the geography cone, Conus geographus; Dusavel’s cone, Conus dusaveli. Third row, left to right: the glory-of-the-sea cone, Conus gloriamaris, the glory-of-India cone, Conus milneedwardsi. Bottom row, left to right: the admiral cone, Conus ammiralis; the banded marble cone, Conus bandanus vidua; Hirasei’s cone, Conus hirasei. The geography cone, C. geographus is responsible for the majority of human fatalities. This species, along with C. magus, C. circumcisus, and C. dusaveli, are all likely to be fish hunting. The other Conus shown all hunt other gastropod molluscs, except for C. hirasei, which is probably a vermivorous species, although its biology has not been studied.

The phylogenetic relationship of Conus species (a) Shells of the cone snails in : (left to right): Conus californicus, Conus pulicarius, Conus tribblei, Conus marmoreus, Conus bullatus, Conus consors and Conus geographus. The phylogenetic tree is inferred from the partial cytochrome oxidase I sequences using Bayesian analysis. Posterior probabilities are indicated for each node. Conasprella, Profundiconus and Californiconus have recently been classified as separate genera in the family Conidae (). Conus californicus is now Californiconus californicus.