Africonus delanoyae
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
Africonus
Africonus delanoyae

description: Africonus delanoyae (Trovão, 1979)
Fig. 3M
Conus delanoyi Trovão, 1979: 3, pl. 1, fig. 1.
Conus luquei Rolán, 1990: 50, pl. 2, fig. 2.
Africonus joserochoi Cossignani, 2014: 27. syn. nov.
Africonus swinneni Tenorio, Afonso, Cunha & Rolán, 2014: 10, pl. 2.
Conus delanoyae – Monteiro et al. 2004: 39, pl. 77.
Conus cuneolus form B (not C. cuneolus Reeve, 1843) – Röckel et al. 1980a: 101, pl. 7, row 1.
Material examined
Holotype
CABO VERDE • 27.2 mm; Boa Vista Island, Baía das Gatas; 1.5 m depth; NHMUK 1986194.
Other material
CABO VERDE • 1 spec., 27.6 mm; Boa Vista Island, Jorrita, Baía das Gatas; 16º12ʹ9ʺ N, 22º42ʹ22ʺ W; 30 Jun. 2013; MNCN exped.; GenBank mitochondrion, partial genome: MF491547; MNCN 15.05/80397 (Fig. 3M) • 1 spec.; Boa Vista Island, Praia Canto; 16º11ʹ10ʺ N, 22º42ʹ28ʺ W; 30 Jun. 2013; MNCN exped.; GenBank mitochondrion, partial genome: MF491552; MNCN 15.05/80402 • 1 spec.; Boa Vista Island, Porto Ferreira; 16º7ʹ45ʺ N, 22º40ʹ17ʺ W; 1 Jul. 2013; MNCN exped.; GenBank mitochondrion, partial genome: MF491556; MNCN 15.05/80406 • 1 spec., 21.0 mm, holotype of Africonus joserochoi; Boa Vista Island, Calheta; MMM.
Geographical distribution
Northeast coast to Porto Ferreira on the East coast of Boa Vista Island, Cabo Verde Archipelago.
Conservation status in IUCN Red List
Least concern.
Remarks
This species was originally described from the population at Baía das Gatas in Boa Vista Island, and the shell color is characterized by a pattern of numerous small irregular dots on a light to dark brown background. It was treated in Röckel et al. (1980a) as Conus cuneolus form B. Other populations of cones around the northeast and east of Boa Vista Island, introduced recently as separate species, exhibit very distinct shell patterns but share the same elongated radular tooth morphology observed in A. delanoyae (Tenorio et al. 2014). Representative specimens of these taxa examined molecularly exhibit mitogenome sequences almost identical to that of A. delanoyae, and can be considered conspecific. Additionally, the type material of A. joserochoi is fully consistent with the concept of A. delanoyae. The author stated that the main features separating A. joserochoi from A. delanoyae were the relative height of the spire (always eroded) and the “less triangular and more pyriform shell shape” in the former. However, no morphometric data are given, nor were these differences statistically tested, so there is no sufficient evidence to consider A. joserochoi as a separate species from A. delanoyae. We can conclude that A. delanoyae is a polymorphic species, only distantly related to A. cuneolus, comprising several well-defined forms with characteristic shell patterns, sharing the same radular morphology and mitogenome sequence. The sister species A. vulcanus is separated by a genetic uncorrected p distance of 0.3%, slightly above the threshold used to delimit species. Given the different radular morphology (radular tooth broad and robust in vulcanus, but narrow and elongated in delanoyae) we consider them tentatively separate species in spite of the close genetic proximity.
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 20-21, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2020.663, http://zenodo.org/record/3890442