Conus achatinus
Conus achatinus, common name the turtle cone or the agate cone, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies.

Almed2 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- ConusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Conidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Conidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Conidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 9 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka.
4 occurrences of Conus achatinus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Miocene50%
- Pliocene25%
- Pleistocene25%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
- Malua Formation · Matamaute Group1
- Lower Menkrawit Formation1
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The named rock units Conus achatinus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Conus achatinus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Conus achatinus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
161 taxa- Aesopus1 site
- Amusium1 site
- Anadara (Anadara) antiquata1 site
- Anaitis calophylla1 site
- Annulaturris undosa1 site
- Aquillus gemmatus1 site
- Aquillus pilearis1 site
- Aquillus rubecula1 site
- Aquillus thersites1 site
- Arca1 site
- Barbatia (Ustularca) fusca1 site
- Bufonaria (Bufonaria) rana1 site
- Bursa1 site
- Bursa granularis1 site
- Cancellaria menadensis1 site
- Cantharidus1 site
- Cardium1 site
- Cassis1 site
- Cerithium1 site
- Cerithium citrinum1 site
- Chama macerophylla1 site
- Chlamys1 site
- Clathrodrillia flavidula1 site
- Clathurella grayi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Conus achatinus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
3 references- Skwarko, 19942
- Fossiles Néogénes et Quaternaires des Nouvelles-Hébrides1
- Mollusken aus posttertiären Schichten von Celebes1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Conus achatinus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Almed2
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itConus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1791)