A mollusc-eating cone snail of Indo-Pacific reefs, with a pattern of overlapping brown-edged tents.
A glossy cone to about 12 cm with a pattern of overlapping tent-shaped marks, cream with brown outlines, in two or three broad bands. It is one of the most recognisable shells on the reef, which is part of the problem: it is attractive and it gets picked up.
It hunts other molluscs at night on reef flats, rubble and sand, and shelters under slabs by day, through the tropical Indo-Pacific.
It is dangerous in the hand and nowhere else. Photographs of live cones are taken without touching them. A shell on the sand may still have the animal in it, and the animal can reach every part of the outside of its own shell.
This entry carries no occurrence record. The animal is listed because it is a hazard a diver should be able to look up, and its range is given above, but none of the destinations this site holds data for is inside that range. A record will be added when there is one to add rather than an estimate to invent.