Conus cookei

Conasprelloides cookei (Dall, 1916)

Description:

Shell of moderate size, regularly biconic, of eight or nine whorls, each on the spire rising slightly above the suture in front of it, the space between the sutures flattish, carrying three spiral threads with wider interspaces; the shoulder of the whorl simple; in front of the suture a very slight inflation of the upper half of the whorl, the rest being direct and flattened; near the shoulder the whorl is sculptured rather closely with obscure spiral threads; in front of these the sculpture becomes strap-like, separated by narrow sharp grooves; nearer the canal these flat spaces begin to be divided by a shallow medial groove, giving them a paired effect, these again become closer and feebler close to the canal.

Length, 38; length of shell in front of the shoulder, 34; diameter at shoulder, 19 mm.

Locality. Station 7079, on the east bank of the Flint River below the mouth of Blue Spring branch, at Mascot Point, in chert blocks; Vaughan, Cooke, and Mansfield, 1914. U. S. Nat. Mus. Cat. No. 166721.

This description is taken from a cast made from a mold in the chert rock. The shell seems nearest to the Conus stenostomus of Sowerby, from the Santo Domingo Oligocene, but is less attenuated anteriorly, has the spire less scalar and the extreme apex of the spire is much less prominent.