Conus eximius Reeve, 1849

Franklin, J. Benjamin, Subramanian, K. A., Fernando, S. Antony & Krishnan, K. S., 2009, 2250, Zootaxa 2250, pp. 1-63 : 28-29

22. Conus eximius Reeve, 1849 (Figure 23)

Conus eximius Reeve, 1849 : pl. 6, no. 256 (type, BMNH (27.5 x 15 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); " Bay of Bengal to Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Taiwan ").

Material examined: MBMCS 122 , 27specimens, SL 35–55 mm; SW 20–36 mm .

Description. Shell medium sized, light to solid. Body whorl conical, outline slightly convex near shoul- der, straight below. Shoulder angulate; spire low to high, outline concave to deeply concave; basal half of body whorl with variably spaced spiral grooves separating ribs anteriorly and a few ribbons posteriorly. Outer lip of aperture thick and nearly straight.

Ground colour white. Body whorl with broad, mostly interrupted brown spiral bands on either side of the centre; often brown axial flames extend from the posterior brown band to shoulder, sometimes additional irregularly spaced band below shoulder. Aperture white.

Distribution. Kohn (1978) first reported the occurrence of C. eximius in India by noting museum specimens in the AMNH and USNM, collected from Madras.

We collected specimens from Madras to Periyakuppam ( Table 6) by trawling in 5 to 15 m mainly on sand bottom.

Remarks. No previous record of this species was available from the TamilNadu Coast, except that based on specimens deposited at AMNH and USNM. The specimen collected from Periyakuppam is the largest (55 mm) recorded so far in India. Conus eximius is generally reported as a deep-water species ( Walls 1979; Röckel et al. 1995; Kohn 2001), but the present survey collected this species in shallow depths. This species is usually landed with C. amadis , C. malacanus , C. bayani , C. monile and other gastropods like Xancus pyrum Linnaeus and Rapana bulbosa Solander.

The specimens of C. eximius are morphologically similar to C. malacanus . However, the latter has two uninterrupted yellowish to orange bands on either side of the centre of the last whorl. Spire height and colour pattern of last whorl of C. eximius varied considerably.