Common Name

"Barbier’s Cone"

Status

Regarded as a valid species.

Type Locality

Leyte Gulf, South of Samar Island, Philippines

Distribution

Philippines

Maximum Reported Size

40 mm

Description

Shell small (lenght of adult specimens 25-40 mm). Last whorl conic-cylindrical (relative diameter: 0.53-0.63) and glossy, although lightly streaked from base to the shoulder. Sides not much convex, diminished at base. Shoulder subangulate and smooth. Spire moderately high (relative high: 0.13-0.20), straight in larger specimens, slightly sigmoid in smaller ones.

Aperture with parallel sides, a little larger toward the base.

Protoconch smooth, globose, opaque and paucispiral, with 1.75-2 whorls (maximum diameter 1.0-1.1 mm). First post-embryonic whorls tuberculate. Teleoconch sutural ramps flat or a little concave in the second-last whorl, with 6-12 thin spiral streaks, usually less evident on the slope of the shoulder.

Background colour white to grey-bluish, last whorl covered by a thick network of brown or bluish axial and spiral lines, that make tents of background colour, of different dimension and often with two large dark brown bands above and below a central zone. The axial lines can merge up to give an evenly brown or blue shell, with one or two darker bands.

Protoconch and first five teleoconch whorls white, the others with the same pattern of the last whorl. Aperture bluish. Periostracum smooth, opaque, brown.

Habitat & Habits

Intertidal under rocks on muddy and rocky bottom, inside reef.

References

• Conchiglia 27 (274): p. 60 & figs.