Defining a clade by morphological, molecular, and toxinological criteria: distinctive forms related to Conus praecellens A. Adams, 1854 (Gastropoda: Conidae)

We carried out a definition of the Conus praecellens A. Adams, 1854, species group using a combination of comparative morphological data, molecular phylogeny based on standard genetic markers, and toxinological markers. Prior to this work, Conus praecellens was generally postulated to belong to a clade of similarly high-spired, smaller species such as Conus pagodus Kiener, 1845, Conus memiae (Habe and Kosuge, 1970) and Conus arcuatus Broderip and Sowerby, 1829. The molecular phylogeny and toxinological data demonstrate that these earlier hypotheses are incorrect, and that instead, Conus praecellens is in a branch of Conus that includes Conus stupa (Kuroda, 1956), Conus stupella (Kuroda, 1956), Conus acutanguhis Lamarck, 1810, and surprisingly, some species that are morphologically strikingly different, Conus mitratus Sowerby, 1870, and Conus cilindraceus Broderip and Sowerby, 1830. A more careful analysis of the morphologically diverse forms assigned to Conus praecellens suggests that from the Philippine material alone, there are at least three additional species new to science, Conus andremenezi, Conus miniexcclsus, and Conus rizali.