Conus loomisi (Dall & Ochsner, 1928)

Description:

Shell of moderate size, solid, with a slightly concave, acute spire, and about 12 whorls exclusive of the (lost) nucleus; suture distinct, whorls between the sutures excavated, marked only with concavely retractive inceremental lines, corresponding to a sulcus at the aperture; shoulder well marked but rounded; body in front of the shoulder with slightly convex sides, constricted somewhat behind the canal ; sculpture of the posterior half of the body obsolete, consisting of very narrow incised lines with much wider flat interspaces; on the anterior half of the body these lines gradually become wider excavated channels, numbering about eight on the canal, which in the adult has a marked siphonal fasciole, there being three or four more grooves; aperture narrow, wider anteriorly; canal deep, wide, very slightly recurved.

Height, 44 mm. ; height of last whorl, 38 mm. ; diameter at shoulder, 22 mm.

Holotype: No. 2910; paratypes: Nos. 2911, 2912, Mus. Calif. Acad. Sci., collected by W. H. Ochsner, March 5, 1906. 1 ¼ miles northeast of Vilamil, Albemarle Island, Galapagos Group. Probably Pleistocene.

The recent shell which most nearly approaches this is Conus lucidus, which occupies the same region at present. This is a shorter and more stumpy shell with less conspicuous sculpture.

The species is named for Mr. Leverett Mills Loomis who was Director of the Museum of the California Academy of Sciences at the time the Galapagos Expedition was organized.