Conus longurionis Kiener, 1845

Franklin, J. Benjamin, Subramanian, K. A., Fernando, S. Antony & Krishnan, K. S., 2009, 2250, Zootaxa 2250, pp. 1-63 : 36

34. Conus longurionis Kiener, 1845 (Figure 35)

Conus longurionis Kiener, 1845 : pl. 92, fig. 6 (type, Coll. Prevost (33 x 10 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); locality unknown). Conus kantanganus da Motta, 1982: 11–12 , figs. 10a, b (holotype, MHNG (33 x 10 mm) ( Röckel et al. 1995); "off the coast of Kantang, South West Thailand in the Andaman Sea").

Material examined: MBMCS 134 , 1 specimen, SL 37 mm; SW 12 mm .

Description. Shell moderately small to medium sized, light. Body whorl usually narrowly conical, outline nearly straight. Shoulder sub-angulate, exhalent notch deep. Spire high, outline almost straight. First 3–10 post nuclear whorls tuberculate and distinct, sutures deep and wide. Body whorl with regularly spaced, axial striate spiral grooves and ribbons. Aperture long, narrow and slightly wide anteriorly.

Ground colour light brown. Body whorl with spiral rows of regular large brown dots on ribbons, partly fusing into irregularly sized axial flecks that cluster into spiral bands above and below centre. A weaker spiral band around shoulder. Aperture pale lavender.

Distribution. The earliest published record of C. longurionis from India was from Gulf of Mannar (Thurston 1985). Subsequent records are from Madras (at AMNH) and Tranquebar (at ZMUC) ( Kohn 1978).

The specimen reported herein was collected from the trash dumped on the fish-landing centre off Madras ( Table 6).

Remarks. Specimens from India and West Thailand were described as C. kantanganus ( Röckel et al. 1995) . C. kantanganus and the similar shells from Thailand and Philippines cannot be separated from C. longurionis at the species level and are considered geographical forms ( Röckel et al. 1995). Since the shell characters of the specimens from Madras agree well with C. kantanganus , it is treated as C. longurionis .