Conus miles Linnaeus, 1758

Franklin, J. Benjamin, Subramanian, K. A., Fernando, S. Antony & Krishnan, K. S., 2009, 2250, Zootaxa 2250, pp. 1-63 : 39

39. Conus miles Linnaeus, 1758 (Figure 40)

Conus miles Linnaeus, 1758: 713 , no. 255 (lectotype, LSL (53 x 31 mm) ( Kohn 1963); " India ").

Material examined: MBMCS 139 , 1 specimen, SL 45 mm; SW 24 mm .

Description. Shell moderately large, solid, glossy; outline broadly conical. Shoulder angulate, broad, weakly undulate. Spire of moderate height, bluntly pointed; outline straight. Body whorl smooth except widely spaced spiral ribs on basal third and few spiral threads in between. Aperture moderately wide, uniform in width; outer lip thin and sharp.

Ground colour dull white. Body whorl with a narrower light-brown spiral band above centre, also wider deep solid brown band on basal fourth to third, remaining areas clouded with lighter brown crossed by well separated fine orange axial lines that extend to shoulder ramp. Spire white, covered with fine orange brown axial lines, early whorls badly eroded, white. Aperture translucent.

Distribution. We obtained a specimen from Pamban ( Table 6) by trawling in 10– 20 m.

Remarks. Linnaeus gave the type locality of this species as ‘India’ ( Röckel et al. 1995) without precise locality data. This record appears to be first to give the exact locality of C. miles in India. This species is extremely rare along the TamilNadu Coast.