Profundiconus profundorum (Kuroda, 1956)

A deep sea cone, recalling an immature specimen of Strombus isabella; moderately large, very thin and elongately biconic; reddish brown, with a faint purplish brown tint. but paler on the lower half; very faintly, spirally striated beneath a rather thickish. unpolished, somewhat sericeous and very slightly laminated periostraqum of olivaceous coloration; the spiral lines on the anterior end are coarse and distinct. strongly slanting, about a dozen in number; spire partaking one-third of the shell-length, regularly conical with 10.5 whorls, the extreme apex eroded, whorls somewhat flattish, very slightly appressed and weakly margined below suture which is shallow; earlier whorls slightly produced above, bearing a few weak and blunt nodes; surface of each whorl with several indistinct spiral striae; shoulder with a blunt angle, below which the lateral wall moderately convex; aperture moderate, both margins parallel, inner margin nearly straight with only a trace of concavity below; outer lip nearly vertical in lateral view with a very thin and simple margin which is very slightly extruded forwardly at the center, and a shallow sinus umbilical above; anterior end roundedly truncated, without any trace of umbilical chink; throat darkly dull brown ⁽³⁾.
Alt. 83, length of last whorl 72, diam. 38; aperture 67.5×8.5 mm.

South-western part of off Tosa, from the bottom said to be deeper than 100 fathoms, collected by Mr. Akibumi Teramachi, 2 specimens examined ⁽³⁾.

Operculum (fig. 9) rather large for a cone, elongated with both parallel margins, dark corneous, marginal parts thin, nucleus at the anterior end, but lost in the type specimen, with rather distinct growth striae, and the outer margin armed with about 8 weak serrations as in many Strombs, dimensions being 16×6mm ⁽³⁾.

Simple colored, deep water species of a rather large size, but extremely thin and elongated shell, with a rather large operculum of a serrated outer margin; these characteristics seem to warrant the establishment of a new group in the Conidae, to which I designate this new species as tyре ⁽³⁾.

Walls (1979) treated C. profundorum from Japan as a geographic subspecies of C. smirna, with the nominate subspecies C. smirna smirna distributed around the Hawaiian Islands. Marshall (1981) interpreted C. smirna and C. profundorum as conspecific, whereas Severns (2011) treated them as distinct species, with Profundiconus smirna endemic to Hawaii ⁽¹⁾.

Profundiconus profundorum (Kuroda, 1956), mainly from Japan and China, but also reported occasionally from the Philippines (Balut Island) or the Salomon Islands ⁽¹⁾.

• (1) - Manuel J. TENORIO Notes on Profundiconus smirna (Bartsch & Rehder, 1943) with description of a new species: Profundiconus smirnoides sp. nov. (Gastropoda, Conilithidae)

• (2) - Manuel J. TENORIO (2016) “The genus Profundiconus: Cone snails from the Deep Sea“

• (3) - New Species of the Conidae (Gastropoda) from Japan Tokubei KuRoDA