It's difficult to believe that cones only live for a few years, but I
haven't had many cones in my aquarium of the past.  I mostly kept
Cowries.  I have posted before about how long I kept cowries alive.  But
once again, I kept a Cy. cervus for 5 years, Cy zebra for six years,
even wrote an article in "Of sea and shore" about it many years ago.
And a Cy. arabica for 21 years.  I took slides of the shells several
different times and the slides are dated.  I always had trouble feeding
cones and also strombus.  I just couldn't get them enough to eat.  The
cowries would eat almost anything.  Sorry I got off the subject of
cones.  Conus geographus certainly isn't uncommon in the Philippines.
They have sent out quite a few over the years.  I won't say how many
I've seen.  For research it looks like the animal could be removed and
put in dry ice for the study and the shell could be used in other
ways???  Like for collectors maybe.

Bob Lipe

Wesley M. Thorsson wrote:
>
 Usually, venom is collected from live cones, maintaining them in an
> aquarium for almost their normal life expectancy (about a 2 years for
> Conus obscurus which I furnished to U. Utah for venom work.  Bruce
> Livett (on CONCH-L) and works in this nuclear biology area is well
> experienced in this field and has raised cones and milked them
> repeatedly for venom, and can comment further on this subject.
>

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