Conus
gloriamaris
Discovered in Vanuatu!
The most famous of all cone snails, this beautiful snail has long been
sought after by collectors for its beautifully intricate shell pattern.
As you can see, the animal itself is beautiful enough to warrant conservation.
Like many other cone snails, this species is especially dangerous to
humans, and in this picture you can actually see its long golden tentacle-like
proboscisis (a fancy word for an extendable tube) reaching out to the
bottom of the picture. What you can’t see is that someone’s
hand is there out of the picture and this snail is trying to get back
at the scientists for taking it out of its environment, an aggressive
defense that many cone snails have to being collected by humans. At
the end of this tube is a small needle-like tooth that is used like
a hypodermic needle to inject its deadly venom into the body of its
victims. Like venomous snakes, cone snails are carnivores and eat other
animals. Most often this venom is used to catch other snails, which
are the food of choice for this particular cone snail. Other cone species
eat worms and some even eat fish. Other things of interest are the siphon
(the tube extending sideways with black and red bands), which is used
to suck water over its gills and to “sniff” out its prey
in the dark, and a strangely alien-like eye stalk with a tiny black
dot on it which is the actual eye of the animal. As this species lives
at depths greater than 100 metres, this eye is not particularly helpful
for locating prey. This snail was so active that we actually got the
first movie of Conus gloriamaris attacking and injecting its venom into
an olive snail. Click on the picture to view this exciting video! If
you watch carefully, you can actually see the venom cloud in the water
and the snail being yanked closer to its hunter by the barbed harpoon.
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Locality:
Vanuatu, Santo, Urelapa Island
Method: Tangle netting, ~100 m
Scientist:
Dr. Jason Biggs
University of Utah, USA
Specialist in the Chemical Ecology of Conidae
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