A wonderful specimen of Conus Regius "citrinus" (2000)
By Touitou David

 

The sunday 22th (2001), in la Martinique island (french caribbean), we had a really fantastic wether.
Usually this is the month of those ling and huge rains... Today not ! A top shiny day with no cloud and
no wind !! Incredible. We went with friends (they are not collectors) swimming on a small beach in north caribbean sea, which is not at all frequented by tourists. As we arrived by 11h00 in the morning and we went straight in the sea.
All of us (6) started to go to the left side of the beach. We saw a few minutes later some Strombus specimens (all kinds). We found also a few fresh dead Cypraea cinerea and pomum Murex.

As the seabed started to change, i instantly noticed that i entered in a Conus regius typical habitat.
There were huge boulders covered with few algae and coral (but not so much). Between the boulders,
smaller rocks and big sandy grains (in fact kind of very small little rock fragments).
I dived to have a look under a huge rock by 1 meter and a half. I found my first specimen. I looked to the
second rock aside the first one : second specimen, but this time it was a "citrinus" one.
Then, we started to hunt in this spot for about one hour. We found 14 speciemens of all size and color... (have a look at the 2 pictures below).

After about two hours of searching, we decided to go back. Only one friend went further. As we were having a good rest on the beach our friend Cyril went back to settlement. He had in his box a few shells. I asked him what did he found. He says a few things and one he did not not what type of shell it was. So I did have a look to his transparent box. I first saw a medium to small size Strombus pugilis. But when I got closer I could not beleive what i saw : a monster Conus regius specimen !! A pure incredible huge orange Conus regius. It is very, very heavy. It is 100 % orange (just like usual Conus daucus), the beginning of the internal part of the lip is also orange (see the last picture). The size is around 60 mm !! He decided to gave it to me because he does not collect shells. This was very nice from him. The conus was found on the top of a huge boulder. Not hidden at all... I let you now enjoy the pictures.