Another possibility with the orange colors on the V bednalli is the shell
has been treated with heat. A normal Conus marmoreus heated in the oven
will turn from a white shell with black or brown tents to a shell with
orange tents. After reading about this I tried it with a few different
shells and got some interesting results. A brown Chicoreus torrefactus
turned orange, a Cypraea lamarckii completely lost the spots and turned a
solid pale tan, etc. I have also heard of shells being heated in oil, but I
have never tried this. The shells I experimented with were inexpensive
tourist trade type shells - no data. Don't know that I would want to mess
with a V bednalli.
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA