One of the banes as well as delights of the "Shell World", is the
multitude of names people dig up for color and pattern forms- expecially
in the Cone family. Quite often, the various "forms" intergrade with
each other, and occur together in the same population, producing a
never-ending source of confusion. Oops- looks like i ran out of time
for rambling on- small loss!! To cut to the chase, there is a seemingly
legitimate pattern form of C. textile L. which occurs in the general
population of this species in Madagascar, but which doesn't seem to have
a name (which is unfair, since many names exist for indistinct,
intergrading forms which don't deserve them!!)- it has no "textile
lines" at all on the body whorl- just tents of various sorts (*see
Manual of the Living Conidae, Volume 1, plate 66, figure 27 for
illustration*). Two oddities are 1) it never grows up, seemingly-
largest specimens are around 50mm, and even these are apparently young,
healthy specimens, and 2) there are often patches of textile lines on
the spire, above the shoulder, indicating a separate genetic device
exists for spire vs body whorl pattern formation, at least in this
species.
Two ??s: 1) has any name been proposed for this quite distincive form?,
and 2) are there other color/pattern forms in other spp which nearly
always die young (exept for albinism, which sometimes causes problems
for individuals, but not always), either via selective predation, or
genetic cross-linkage to unhealthy traits?
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