Marble Cone Snail

Interestingly enough this venom is the same neurotoxin that is produced by the deadly blue ringed octopus which generally causes loss of coordination intense pain and typically a very unpleasant experience.

Marble cone snail.

It feeds on other snails including some within its own species. Conus marmoreus common name the marbled cone is a species of predatory sea snail a marine gastropod mollusk in the family conidae the cone snails cone shells or cones it is the type species for the genus conus this is a species which is believed to feed mostly on marine molluscs including other cone snails. The radula in most gastropods has rows of many small teeth and is used for grasping at food and scraping it into the mouth. The size of the marbled cone snail is six inches in length and 7 47 grams in weight.

Marbled cone snail is included in the list of top 10 most dangerous animals in the world. This means that it defines the genus for the purpose of determining whether or not other species belong to that same genus. It s the marbled cone snail. Are cone snails dangerous.

This snail is venomous like all cone snails. In order to get its prey the cone snail injects a rapid acting venom from a dart like tooth radicula or dagger. This reputation is all caused by a deadly chemical these little snails can emit. It is also known as cigarette snail which means that most of the time a person stung by a cone snail has only time to smoke a cigarette before dying.

The snail traps its prey in a very unique way. Cone snails use a radula tooth as a harpoon like structure for predation. When it attacks its prey it sticks out its long white proboscis to shoot a poison laden harpoon sometimes attacking its prey multiple times over. The venom is so dangerous that it can cause intense pain tingling numbness and swelling.

It shoots out a toxic harpoon and reels in its prey a passing fish whenever it locates the same. These snails certainly are lovely but they re as deadly as they are beautiful. Even a drop of marbled cone snail s venom is so powerful that it can kill more than 20 people. Cone snails mainly hunt worms and other snails.

While some animal s venom may be deadlier none cane do so much damage with so little. A single drop of this snail s venom is powerful enough to kill 20 adult humans. Each of these harpoons is a modified tooth primarily made of chitin and formed inside the mouth of the snail in a structure known as the toxoglossan radula. The marbled cone snail was the first cone snail described by the father of binomial nomenclature carolus linnaeus and is the type species for the genus conus or cone snails.

A few varieties of cone snails eat fish and these are the most harmful to humans. Cone snail shells range in size from less than an inch to 9 inches long.