Wildlife
Intricately patterned and brightly coloured shells give the cone snails an attractive appearance. But beneath all the glamour they are predatory and venomous sea snails. What makes these quite beautiful snails so dangerous to fish, worms or molluscs is their fusion of different neurotoxins, a mix that is unique to each species. This deadly cocktail is delivered by a harpoon-like strike from a modified tooth that is propelled out of the extended proboscis. Once the prey has been immobilised it is swallowed whole. Cone snails have a remarkable ability to rapidly modify their venom for different prey: some of which are of great interest to the biomedical industry. There are over 600 species of cone snail and most of them are found among coral reefs in tropical coastal regions.
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Silent assassin
Cone snails are silent assassins of the sea, drugging sleeping fish before poisoning them.
Cone snails are silent assassins of the sea, drugging sleeping fish before poisoning them.
The Cone snails can be found in a number of locations including: Australia, Great Barrier Reef. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Cone snails distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Discover the other animals and plants that lived during the following geological time periods.
Conus is a large genus of small to large predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs, with the common names of cone snails, cone shells or cones. This genus is placed in the subfamily Coninae within the family Conidae. Geologically speaking, the genus is known from the Eocene to the Recent (Holocene) periods.Conus species have shells that are shaped more or less like geometric cones. Many species have colorful patterning on the shell surface. Conus snails are mostly tropical in distribution.
Because all Conus snails are venomous and capable of "stinging" humans, live ones should be handled with great care or preferably not at all. The species most dangerous to humans are the larger ones which prey on small bottom-dwelling fish. The other species hunt and eat marine worms or mollusks. Cone snails use a hypodermic-like modified radula tooth and a venom gland to attack and paralyze their prey before engulfing it. The tooth is sometimes likened to a dart or a harpoon. It is barbed and can be extended some distance out from the mouth of the snail, at the end of the proboscis.
Cone snail venoms are mainly peptides. The venoms contain many different toxins that vary in their effects; some are extremely toxic. The sting of small cones is no worse than a bee sting, but the sting of a few of the larger species of tropical cone snails can be serious, occasionally even fatal to human beings. In recent years cone snail venom is showing great promise as a source of new, medically important substances.
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Helpless young
Carnivorous
Egg layer
Predator
Venomous
Eocene epoch
Oligocene epoch
Miocene epoch
Pliocene epoch
Pleistocene epoch
Holocene epoch