Intriguing exhibit

Intriguing exhibit 

The Glory of the Sea Cone (ConusgloriamarisChemintz, 1777) is a marine gastropod mollusc, commonly found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

It is a venomous mollusc, feeding on its conspecifics and other invertebrates, small fishes. The shell was first described in 1777 by Johann Chemintz. For next two hundred years Conusgloriamaris was considered as very rare and very expensive shell, owned by exclusively wealthy collectors. 
Improvements in diving technology and the discovery of several hundred specimens in British Solomon Islands have dethroned this queen of shells to the status of “moderately common”. Nevertheless, because of its exclusionary beauty the Glory of the Sea Cone still is the pride of collections.

The Lithuanian Sea Museum obtained the shell form HenrikasDanila, a collector from Klaipeda in 1995. Assuming, that usual size of the Conusgloriamaris is  80-120 mm, the size of the one owned  by the Museum - 114 mm - is rather uncommon. The tan coloration varying from a lighter, golden colour to a deeper dark brown is typical to the description in conchology.