At 02:54 01/06/10 +0000, you wrote:
> If a cone shell has a worm tube in the middle of its dorsum, is this a
> good indication it was collected dead? Do worms often inhabit the shells
> of healthy cones?

Holes in cones : If you mean a calcitic surface worm tube, then I have many
examples of these on living cones. They seem to anchor themselves better if
there is a bite mark or some other break on the dorsum as the slippery
periostracum of many cones otherwise gives them good protection. Tubes are
also found on the spire, especially around the eroded apex where the worm
can get a good foothold.
In Okinawa's Kin Bay and elsewhere, the ingress of mud from runoff water
out of sugar fields onto a former coral bottom has meant that what little
coral spawn still survives is often stuck for somewhere to settle. I have
seen live Conus (and Turris) there staggering around under the weight of
large lumps of healthy octocoral attached to the dorsum. From Amami and
Wakayama I have a number of healthy cones with oysters covering their
spires, and the pride of my collection is a C. capitaneus from Tsubaki
which was still ticking when I found it despite its shell being riddled
with sponge root tunnels to the point of translucency.