Penniform cone

This very old penniform cone was taken from the shallows of Kapalua Bay. A honey cowry sharing the twenty-gallon aquarium tank with this cone had produced a mucus trail as it foraged. Using its siphon and proboscis together, the cone had followed the trail and captured the cowry. The cone devoured the cowry's entire body, leaving a completely clean shell. Among the mollusks (other cones, nerites, drupes, nudibranchs, tectibranchs and others) that shared its aquarium home from time to time, only the cowries seemed to provoke hunting. When it hadn't eaten for a few days, the penniform cone became aggitated as soon as a cowry was placed in the tank, before it had come in contact with the cowry's mucus trail. And the cone clearly could distinguish that trail from those of the other molluscs wandering around the tank.