Conus asiaticus da Motta, 1985

Franklin, J. Benjamin, Subramanian, K. A., Fernando, S. Antony & Krishnan, K. S., 2009, 2250, Zootaxa 2250, pp. 1-63 : 20

7. Conus asiaticus da Motta, 1985 (Figure 8)

Conus asiaticus da Motta, 1985a: 25 (holotype, MHNG (41.5 x 19 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); "off Tai-chung, Straight of Taiwan, East China Sea").

Conus lovellreevei, Massila, 1993: 3–6 , pl. 1, figs. 4, 5 (holotype, BMNH (42.5 x 19.5 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); "off Madras , South East India ").

Material examined: MBMCS 107 , 12 specimens, SL 35–50 mm; SW 16–22 mm .

Description. Shell medium sized, moderately solid. Body whorl conical; outline convex adapically; left side slightly concave near base. Shoulder angulate, weakly granulose. Spire of moderate height, outline concave. Body whorl with strong, with prominent widely spaced spiral ribs and ribbons, strongly granulose.

Ground colour white. Body whorl overlaid with yellowish brown irregular axial streaks and blotches arranged in two spiral bands. Early postnuclear sutural ramps white to pale brownish. Aperture white. Periostracum brown, thin and translucent.

Distribution. Massilia (1993) reported a specimen of C. asiaticus (as ‘ C. lovellreevei ’) from Madras.

The specimens described herein were collected from Vembar ( Table 6) by trawling in 5–15 m, mainly on the sandy bottoms.

Remarks. Some specimens of C. asiaticus appear similar to C. inscriptus . However, C. asiaticus can be distinguished from the latter by the irregular yellowish brown axial streaks and blotches on its body whorl, while C. inscriptus has regular spirals of both brown dots and dashes or sometimes either dots or blotches.

Massilia (1993) has reported a specimen of C. lovellreevei from the southeast coast of India. There have been no records in the literature on the distribution of C. asiaticus from India. The geographical range of C. asiaticus is given as " Japan to Philippines and Vietnam; Queensland" and for C. lovelreevei : "off Madras, India " ( Röckel et al. 1995). The specimen described above collected from Vembar has the characteristic features of C. asiaticus thus disproves the statement of Röckel et al. (1995) that 'because of their disjunct geographical ranges, the slight differences in shell morphology between C. asiaticus and C. lovelreevei justify seperation'. The specimen presently collected extends the distribution of C. asiaticus to southeast India.