Classification

Domain: Eukarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Neogastropoda
Family: Conidae
Genus: Conus
Species: Conus marmoreus

Domain: Eukarya
Eukaryotes have cells with a nucleus and membrane bound organelles and have multiple linear DNA vs. singular circular DNA.

Kingdom: Animalia
Almost every animal is heterotrophic, meaning it consumes its food rather than making it via photosynthesis.  All are multicellular, don’t have cell walls, and can go through sexual and/or asexual reproduction.

Phylum: Mollusca
Mollusks are triploblastic, which means they have 3 types of tissue, and possess a coelom (fluid-filled body cavity).  Their bodies are divided into a head-foot, visceral mass, & mantle.  Some members have an exoskeleton made mostly of calcium carbonate, instead of chitin like in arthropods such as the Common Green Darner Dragonfly.  They can be dioecious (two houses; only one sex per organism) or monoecious (hermaphroditic), or they can be asexual.  Most have an open circulatory system with a heart, vessels, and open and empty tissues, and typically have a radula, which is a tongue-like organ with up to 250,000 teeth that acts like a conveyor belt.

Class: Gastropoda
Gastropods (such as Appalachina chilhoweensis) are extremely diverse and can be found in many types of habitats, such as marine, freshwater, or terrestrial.  Some have gills, and some have simple lungs.  Shell coiling is either planispiral or conispiral.  All have undergone torsion, or which is a complete 180 degree twist in body components relative to the head-foot.

Order: Neogastropoda
Most in this order are distinguished by their operculum (shell lid) and well-developed siphon for finding prey, often supported by a special groove in the shell.  They are mostly predators or deposit-feeders.

Family: Conidae
All are carnivorous and feed on worms, other gastropods, and in some cases even small fish by ejecting their poison-filled modified radula out of their proboscis.  They are generally cone-shaped with a long slit opening along the side and a flat top, although some have spires.  They have varied colors and patterns on shell.

Genus: Conus
There are around 500 species in this genus, which are also known as cone snails.  Members produce around 100 venom peptides, with little overlap between species.  Most live in shallow waters (>100m) and have separate sexes.  While many fish eat mollusks, cone snails are the only snails known to eat fish.

Species: Conus marmoreus
The shell of this species is usually 2 to 3 inches long and patterned with rather amorphous shapes of various color (almost always whitish shapes on a dark background).  They are molluscivorous, which means they hunt and eat other mollusks.  Their radular tooth is relatively short compared to other cones.

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