Conus aratispira

Conus aratispira (Pilsbry, 1905)

Descrizione

Shell slender and long, with high, turreted spire, biconic, the cone of the spire about one-third the total length, somewhat terraced, the whorls angular in the middle, smooth below the angle, steeply sloping and marked with 4 or 5 spiral grooves above it, the shoulder of the inter mediate whorls very weakly tuberculate in well-preserved specimens ⁽¹⁾.

Last whorl obliquely striate toward the base, the grooves and convexintervals of equal size below, but upwards they become more widely spaced, with wide fiat intervals. The aperture is narrow, its length about three-fourths that of the shell ⁽¹⁾.

Length 42, diam. 13,5 mm.

Length about 48, diam. 16 mm.

Kikai, Osumi, in a deposit of probably Pliocene age. Tjrpes No. 88.297, A. N. S. P., from No. 1,579 of Mr. Hirase's collection ⁽¹⁾.

This belongs to a small group of cones with the spire much elevated ⁽¹⁾.

Wall, in 1979, said of Conus aratispira: “a fossil name often allied with Conus milneedwardsi, but since it has no color pattern it cannot be satisfactorily placed with any living species” ⁽²⁾.

Whether the recent populations of C. milneedwardsi kawamurai and the Pleistocene C. aratispira (Pilsbry, 1905) from Kikai, Osumi (Japan), are the same species, as considered by Matsukuma, Okutani & Habe, 1991, cannot be unequivocally determined (Walls, [1979], Yoshiba, 1990); similarities in shape are not sufficient to justify such a hypothesis ⁽³⁾; however, in 2000, Paul Callomon ⁽²⁾, using UV light, was able to obtain a photograph in which the coloring of the two ANSP specimens is present, therefore the hypothesis that Conus kawamurai is a descendant of Conus aratispira, if not even the same species, has returned to be considered valid.

Conus aratispira ⁽¹⁾

Plate II fig. 1

Type ANSP 88296

Is Ryukyu - Kikai, Osumi

Pliocene

the smaller syntype Fig. 1 right

ANSP 88297

mm.42,1

Lectotype of Conus aratispira ^(2,2a)

The color pattern of a specimen of Conus cf. lizardensis from Java is very similar to that of this specimen.

The former syntype Fig.1 left

ANSP 403173 mm. 47,0

Paralectotype ⁽²⁾


Conus kawamurai mm. 79 FEMORALE	Conus kawamurai mm. 62 FEMORALE	Conus kawamurai mm. 55,5 FEMORALE	Conus kawamurai mm. 47,5 FEMORALE	Conus aratispira Syntype ANSP 403173 ⁽²⁾ mm. 47,0	Conus aratispira Syntype ANSP 88297 ⁽²⁾ mm. 42,1

Bibliografia

(1) - Pilsbry (1905) "New Japanese Marine Mollusca"
(2) - Paul Callomon (2000) “Lectotype Selectionfor Conus aratispira Pilsbry 1905”
(2a) - Paul Callomon (2000) “Lectotype Selectionfor Conus aratispira Pilsbry 1905”
(3) - http://www.theconecollector.com/checklist/Taxon_Pages/M1.htm
(4) - Conus (Leptoconus) kawamurai (Habe, 1962)
(5) - Wikipedia: Conus kawamurai
(6) - Habe, T., 1962. Coloured Illustrations of the Shells of Japan