James Wrote:
Dear all,
I have a debate that needs to be settled. What is the current taxonomic
status of
Conus abbotti Clench, 1946? Is it still accepted as a valid species? Ed
Petuch told me
that all the Conus described by Clench, excepting Conus floridanus
burryae, are invalid.
He said that Conus abbotti is just a synonym of Conus jacundus. I am
totally confused;
can anyone help me and tell me what is correct?

I think this is still a matter of debate: i have seen a couple dozen of
each "form", and there doesn't appear to be much of an over-lap: it is
possible that the one normally called jucundus, is in fact a form of the
more widely-distributed abboti-critter (even if it is a senior synonym -
a thorny situation, if true: the abboti form is quite a bit more
variable than the jucuncus one, from what i've seen anyway, so having
abboti as a form or variety of jucundus doesn't really make much sense.)
- lets here from someone who has carefully examined the radula and
animals, and THEN we might have the mystery cleared up!!

Spring indeed up here!!,
Ross.