Conus bullatus, common name the bubble cone, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies.
Like all species within the genus Conus, these snails are predatory and venomous. They are capable of stinging humans, therefore live ones should be handled carefully or not at all.
Description The size of an adult shell varies between 42 mm and 82 mm. The thin shell is inflated and grooved below. The color of the shell is white, clouded with orange-red and chestnut, forming two ill-defined bands, with indistinct revolving rows of white and chestnut articulations. The aperture is pink.George Washington Tryon, Manual of Conchology, vol. VI, p. 87; 1879
Distribution This species occurs in the Indian Ocean off the Mascarene Basin and Mauritius; in the Indo-West Pacific (the Philippines, New Caledonia)
References
Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentius Salvius: Holmiae. ii, 824 pp Drivas, J. & M. Jay (1988). Coquillages de La Réunion et de l'île Maurice Filmer R.M. (2001). A Catalogue of Nomenclature and Taxonomy in the Living Conidae 1758 - 1998. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden. 388pp. Tucker J.K. (2009). Recent cone species database. 4 September 2009 Edition Tucker J.K. & Tenorio M.J. (2009) Systematic classification of Recent and fossil conoidean gastropods. Hackenheim: Conchbooks. 296 pp Puillandre N., Duda T.F., Meyer C., Olivera B.M. & Bouchet P. (2015). One, four or 100 genera? A new classification of the cone snails. Journal of Molluscan Studies. 81: 1–23
External links The Conus Biodiversity website Hu H., Bandyopadhyay P. K., Olivera B. M. & Yandell M. (2011). "Characterization of the Conus bullatus genome and its venom-duct transcriptome". BMC Genomics 12: 60. . Ul-Hasan S, Burgess DM, Gajewiak J, Li Q, Hu H, Yandell M, Olivera BM, Bandyopadhyay PK. (2013). "Characterization of the peptidylglycine α-amidating monooxygenase (PAM) from the venom ducts of neogastropods Conus bullatus and Conus geographus." Toxicon 74: 215–224.
Cone Shells – Knights of the Sea
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