Conus aculeiformis Reeve, 1844

Franklin, J. Benjamin, Subramanian, K. A., Fernando, S. Antony & Krishnan, K. S., 2009, 2250, Zootaxa 2250, pp. 1-63 : 17

2. Conus aculeiformis Reeve, 1844 (Figure 3)

Conus aculeiformi s Reeve, 1844: pl. 44, no. 240b (lectotype, BMNH 196168 (38 x 15 mm) ( Walls 1979); " Cagayan, island of Mindanao , Philippines ") .

Conus (Asperi) delicates Schepman, 1913: 392– 393 , pl. 25, fig. 3 (holotype, ZMA (18.5 x 6 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); "Madura-bay").

Material examined: MBMCS 102 , 3 specimens, SL 35–41 mm; SW 11–15 mm .

Description. Shell moderately small and light. Body whorl narrowly conical, elongated anteriorly, outline almost straight. Shoulder angulate with a deep exhalent notch. Spire of moderate height, sharply pointed and concave. Body whorl with widely spaced, axially striate spiral grooves separating very flat ribbons and extending from base to shoulder. Aperture long, narrow and slightly wider anteriorly, outer lip very thin and fragile, posteriorly sloping strongly below level of shoulder. Ground colour cream. Body whorl with spiral rows of brown squarish to rectangular spots on ribbons, often fused into an interrupted spiral band on each side of the centre. Aperture pale brown.

Distribution. There have been no records in the literature on the distribution of this species in India. However, specimens from Madras (at AMNH) and Tranquebar (at ZMUC) were collected by the Galathea expedition ( Kohn 1978) .

The specimens described herein were collected from Madras by trawling in 20–40 m and at Cuddalore from the trash discard ( Table 6).

Remarks. The present shell collected from Cuddalore is larger (41 mm) than the maximum length (38 mm) of this species previously reported by Röckel et al. (1995).