A new species of cone snail, Conus laccadivensis sp. nov.: (Gastropoda: Conidae) from the Islands of Lakshadweep Archipelago

Abstract The present paper describes the cone snail, Conus laccadivensis sp. nov., based on the morphological and molecular characters of the materials collected from Kalpeni and Androth Islands of Lakshadweep Archipelago. The species closely resembles the tropical species Conus distans (Hwass in Bruguiere (1792) which is widely distributed throughout the Indo-Pacific regions. Morphologically C laccadivensis sp. nov., differs from C. distans in shell colour and spire characteristics. Conus laccadivensis sp. nov., possess distinct colour patterns with large and closely spaced coronations. The maximum likelihood clustering approaches using the mitochondrial genes such as COI, 16S rRNA and 12S rRNA revealed a separate genetic cluster confirming the newly identified species.