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Conus
boui Da Motta, 1988 Two
species under the same name ?
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Author : Touitou
David
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First,
i would like to come back on a few points concerning this lovely
specie named "recently" as Conus boui (from Mr
Bou's name) by Mr Da Motta in 1988 :
This specie
seems to be endemic from Martinique island (Caribbean). Never
any other specimen were found elsewhere in the Caribbean (and of
course in the world).
It's Habitat is around 25-35m
usually, but it can be found sometimes in 10m depth. It seems to
be like C. daucus a worm-killer species. It is a small shell
wich can reach 40mm though.
While i was in Martinique (for
18 months), I had the chance to collect this rare shell beached,
fresh dead and live. I saw many specimens dead and only 4 live.
When you have a bunch of those, you can at first sight see a difference
betwen shells : the color. Some of
my specimens have a general red color
and some have a yellow one. Of course
the drawings on the shell are always very different from one specimen
to another. But the main difference between
them is the color.
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| Conus boui,
red & yellow variations from Martinique |
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| Conus boui,
red & yellow variations from Martinique |
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This fact striked me while I
was there. But the only mean to be sure that those shells could
belong to too different species or sub-species, would be to analyse
DNA. The shells are too close to reveal this. But another interesting
point is : the animal.
Does the animal have also a different color wich could make us think
it is different ?
Well, sometime we have a lot of chance ! This time was mine. I found
both of them live. And ?
And the animals have different colors
! It is astonishing ! Check the pictures.
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| Conus
boui, red specimen, Martinique |
Conus
boui, yellow specimen, Martinique |
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This fact is striking on those
two pictures i made in my small aquarium, in Martinique.
After this, we could easily think that we are in front of two species
or subpecies or whatever. BUT, I must
say that i have seen this with C. daucus
(Hwass in Bruguière,
1792) also, wich C. boui seems related to.
I found some very clear orange ones that had an animal very clear
and some with dark red shell & animal color, like showed on
the two pictures below (look at the syphon).
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| C.
daucus yellow specimen, Martinique |
C.
daucus red specimen, Martinique |
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To sum up, C. boui (maybe
like C. daucus), can be have two different colors : shell
& animal can be red or yellow. Actually it is impossible to
solve this important problem.
For that purpose, i sent 2 years ago both specimens in alcool 95°,
to M. Thomas Dudda (who moved at this time and could not do the
job) for DNA analysis. I know that M. Dudda now works with M. Kohn
(who actually works on volume II of Manual of living Conidae).
I am waiting. If i have any info, i will surely add it on this page.
So i hope this year 2004 will solve this interesting problem. mr
Dudda shoul get his hands on the samples soon !!! And maybe we'll
have both Conus boui & "Conus pseudoboui"...
If you have any comment, please mail me and i'll insert your message
on the website.
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The samples (with
Martinique coneshells) just
before they get into the parcel sent to Mr Dudda.
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