Chelyconus ermineus
Creators: name: Tenorio, Manuel J.
name: Abalde, Samuel
name: Pardos-Blas, José R.
name: Zardoya, Rafael
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Neogastropoda
Conidae
Chelyconus
Chelyconus ermineus

description: Chelyconus ermineus (Born, 1778)
Fig. 6L
Conus ermineus Born, 1778: 141.
Conus oculatus Gmelin, 1791: 3387.
Conus testudinarius Hwass in Bruguière, 1792: 694.
Conus eques Hwass in Bruguière, 1792: 705.
Conus luzonicus Hwass in Bruguière, 1792: 706.
Conus portoricanus Hwass in Bruguiére, 1792: 714.
Cucullus barathrum Röding, 1798: 43.
Cucullus crucifer Röding, 1798: 48.
Cucullus cutisanguina Röding, 1798: 48.
Conus coerulescens Schröter, 1803: 67.
Conus leaeneus Link, 1807: 103.
Conus narcissus Lamarck, 1810: 281.
Conus coerulescens Dillwyn, 1817: 368.
Conus aspersus G.B. Sowerby I, 1833: pl. 28, fig. 16.
Conus caerulans Küster, 1838: pl. 14, figs 3–4.
Conus grayi Reeve, 1844: pl. 46. sp. 258, a–c.
Conus inquinatus Reeve, 1849: pl. 5, sp. 251.
Conus rudis Weinkauff, 1873: 158, pl. 10, figs 1–2.
Conus verrucosus piraticus Clench, 1942: 14, pl. 11, fig. 1.
Conus perryae Clench, 1942: 31, pl. 15, fig. 5.
Conus ermineus – Monteiro et al. 2004: 41, pls 14–16.
Material examined
Lectotype
Lectotype in NHMW. Type locality not mentioned in 1778 in the original description.
Other material
CABO VERDE • 1 spec.; Maio Island, Praia Gonçalo; 15º16ʹ13ʺ N, 23º6ʹ15ʺ W; 1 Jul. 2013; MNCN exped.; GenBank mitochondrion, partial genome: KY864977; MNCN 15.05/78876 • 1 spec.; Boa Vista Island, Porto do Derrubado; 16º13ʹ22ʺ N, 22º47ʹ41ʺ W; 3 Jul. 2013; MNCN exped.; MNCN 15.05/80980 • 1 spec.; Santa Luzia Island, Ponta Praia; 16º45ʹ55ʺ N, 24º46ʹ54ʺ W; 16 Apr. 2016; MNCN exped.; MNCN 15.05/78606 • 1 spec.; Sal Island, Murdeira; 16º40ʹ43ʺ N, 22º56ʹ9ʺ W; 9Apr. 2014; MNCN exped.; MNCN 15.05/80013 • 1 spec., 54.3 mm; same collection data as for preceding; MNCN 15.05/80014 (Fig. 6L).
Geographical distribution
West and East Atlantic Ocean.
Conservation status in IUCN Red List
Least concern.
Remarks
This is an amphiatlantic (i.e., present on both shores of the Atlantic Ocean) species and the only piscivorous cone in the Atlantic Ocean. Its venom has been subject of detailed proteomic (Rivera-Ortiz et al. 2011; Quinton et al. 2013; Echterbille et al. 2017) and transcriptomic (Abalde et al. 2018) studies. It is widely distributed along the West African coast, being locally abundant at certain locations, but nowadays it is much more scarce in the western Atlantic than in the past. For a long time it has been speculated that possibly the eastern and western Atlantic populations might represent two separate species. Until detailed molecular studies are performed including the entire mitogenome examination of western Atlantic individuals, we maintain all the populations from both shores of the Atlantic Ocean as members of the same species, namely Chelyconus ermineus.
description: Published as part of Tenorio, Manuel J., Abalde, Samuel, Pardos-Blas, José R. & Zardoya, Rafael, 2020, Taxonomic revision of West African cone snails (Gastropoda: Conidae) based upon mitogenomic studies: implications for conservation, pp. 1-89 in European Journal of Taxonomy 663 (663) on pages 47-48, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2020.663, http://zenodo.org/record/3890442