Hendricks—Miocene Conidae from the Gatun Formation of Panama
coloration pattern that is consistent with C. spurius Gmelin, 1791 as circumscribed herein (see below). See Woodring (1970) for a complete synonymy list. The most notable feature of Conus molis is its remarkably
large size, which readily dwarfs co-occurring species from the Gatun Formation, as well as most other fossil and extant tropical American cone snail species. Complete and nearly complete specimens of mature C. molis are very rare at UF locality YN020, and most of the specimens that can be unequivocally assigned to C. molis consist of large spire fragments. While these mature specimens from YN020 were easily assigned to C. molis, mature individuals of Conus aemulator are very similar to immature specimens of C. molis and can be readily confused; see the remarks for C. aemulator for differences between the two species. Woodring’s (1970, p. 351) description of C. molis noted that “immature shells” sometimes preserve a coloration pattern “consisting of spiral rows of brownish crude rectangles, much like the pattern of C. spurius.” Such a pattern, however, is different from that described here for both immature and mature specimens of C. molis (e.g., Fig. 12.5–12.12). Instead, these “immature shells” of C. molis mentioned by Woodring (1970) are considered here to be specimens of C. spurius (see description of that species below). While specimens of C. spurius from UF locality YN020 have overall shell shapes that are somewhat similar to those of C. molis and C. aemulator, they lack the prominent spiral threads that cover the sutural ramps of the latter two species. Beyond the Gatun Formation, C. molis shares many
morphological similarities with Conus haytensis Sowerby I, 1850 from the Pliocene of the Dominican Republic and Florida, which has a somewhat different coloration pattern (see Hendricks, 2009, 2015; a more detailed comparison will require re-description of the Dominican material). Conus molis is also similar in shell morphology to the extant eastern Pacific taxon Conus fergusoni Sowerby II, 1873 (also recognized by Woodring, 1966), which has a known phylogenetic position (Puillandre et al., 2014), allowing both fossil taxa to be assigned with confidence to the clade (subgenus “Pyruconus II”) represented today only by C. fergusoni.
Subgenus Spuriconus Petuch, 2003
Type species.—Conus spurius Gmelin, 1791, from the Recent of the western Atlantic, designated by Petuch (2003).
Remarks.—Conus spurius was included in the molecular phylo- genetic analysis of Puillandre et al. (2014) and was found to occupy a derived position within Conus. Puillandre et al. (2014, 2015) assigned C. spurius to the Conus subgenus Lindaconus Petuch, 2002. As recently noted by Hendricks (2015), however, the type species for Lindaconus—Conus lindae Petuch, 1987—is
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a synonym of Conus flavescens Sowerby I, 1834 (see Kohn, 2014), which belongs in the Conus subgenus Dauciconus (Puillandre et al., 2014). Therefore, the name Spuriconus Petuch, 2003 is favored for this subgenus over
Lindaconus.Conus spurius is vermivorous (Kohn, 2014) and possibly also molluscivorous (Leal et al., 2017); the feeding ecologies of fossil species assigned to Spuriconus are therefore uncertain, though vermivory is likely.
Conus (Spuriconus) spurius Gmelin, 1791 Figures 2.1, 13.1–13.20
1791 Conus spurius Gmelin, 1791, p. 3396, no. 67. 1970 ?Conus spurius; Woodring, p. 348, pl. 55, fig. 7. 1993 Conus cf. molis Brown and Pilsbry; Pitt and Pitt, p. 10, pl. 4, fig. 2 (not C. molis Brown and Pilsbry, 1911).
2008 Conus spurius s.l.; Landau, Vermeij, and da Silva, p. 458.
2009 Conus spurius; Hendricks, p. 19, pl. 3, figs. 1–14, pl. 4, figs. 1–15 (includes complete synonym list for Plio-Pleistocene records for the southeastern U.S.).
2009 Spuriconus spurius (Gmelin, 1791); Tucker and Tenorio, p. 121, pl. 7, fig. 7.
2013 Lindaconus spurius spurius (Gmelin, 1791); Tucker, p. 125, figs. 44–46.
2014 Conus spurius; Kohn, p. 345, pls. 97–100 (includes complete synonym list for modern records).
2015 Conus (Spuriconus) spurius;Hendricks,p.49, fig. 26a–f, k. 2017 Conus sp.; Williams, fig. 6b, f.
Lectotype.—Illustration in Gualtieri (1742, pl. 21, figs. d, f) designated by Clench (1942) and recently reproduced in Kohn (2014, pl. 97, figs. 1, 2), Virgin Gorda, Virgin Islands (see Vink, 1985; Kohn, 2014).
Occurrence.—Kohn (2014) reviewed the distribution of extant Conus spurius and published an occurrence map (Kohn, 2014, map 5.29) showing the species spanning most of the Caribbean, the east and west coasts of Florida, and the northern Yucatán Peninsula. The species also has an extensive Neogene tropical American fossil record, including the Plio-Pleistocene of Florida (Hendricks, 2009) and the early Pliocene Gurabo For- mation of the Dominican Republic (Hendricks, 2015). Landau and da Silva (2010) assigned 24 specimens from the lower Pliocene Araya Formation of Cubagua Island, Venezuela to C. spurius. One of their two figured specimens (NHMW 2010/ 0038/0150; pl. 21, fig. 5a–c), however, appears to be Conus humerosus Pilsbry, 1921 (see Hendricks, 2015, figs. 3, 26g–j), while the other (NHMW 2010/0038/0214, pl. 21, fig. 6a, b) is assigned to C. woodringi n. sp. (see remarks associated with that species). It is nevertheless possible that some (or all) of the remaining 22 specimens belong to C. spurius, although these have not been observed by the author. Woodring (1970)
Figure 12. Conus (Pyruconus II) molis Brown and Pilsbry, 1911 from the Gatun Formation of Panama: (1–4) photographed under regular light; (5–12) photographed under UV light; all specimens are from UF locality YN020 (lower Gatun Formation) unless otherwise indicated. (1) USNM 645743, specimen figured by Woodring (1970, pl. 55, figs. 9, 10), Panama Canal Zone, Woodring locality 155b, middle Gatun Formation, SL 54.7mm; (2) ANSP 1684, a syntype of Conus concavitectum Brown and Pilsbry, 1911, Panama Canal Zone, Gatun Formation, SL 37.0mm (measured from digital image); (3) UF 259785, showing the shape of the subsutural flexure and features of the sutural ramp; (4, 5) UF 259776, MD 40.0mm (damaged), with (4) showing features of the early postnuclear whorls; (6)UF 259787, MD 28.0mm (damaged); (7) UF 270981, SL 26.5mm; (8, 9) UF 259780, MD 38.1mm (damaged); (10) UF 270982, MD 51.0mm (damaged); (11)UF 190574, SL 79.0mm; (12) UF 270983, SL 83.1mm. Scale bar to the left of (1) equals 10mm and pertains to (1, 2, 5–12); scale bar to the right of (3) equals 5mm and pertains to that specimen; and scale bar to the right of (4), which is a focus-stacked composite image, equals 1mm and pertains to that specimen.
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