Strombus luhuanus
Encyclopedia
Conomurex luhuanus, common name
Common name
A common name of a taxon or organism is a name in general use within a community; it is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism...

 the Strawberry conch, is a species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of medium-sized sea snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a marine
Marine (ocean)
Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod mollusk in the family
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Strombidae
Strombidae
Strombidae, commonly known as the true conchs, is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Stromboidea....

, the true conch
Conch
A conch is a common name which is applied to a number of different species of medium-sized to large sea snails or their shells, generally those which are large and have a high spire and a siphonal canal....

s.

Shell description

The shell of C. luhuanus ranges from a more common length of 5 cm, to a maximum length of 8 cm.

C. luhuanus is often mistaken for a Cone snail
Cone snail
Conidae is a taxonomic family of minute to quite large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Conoidea.The snails within this family are sophisticated predatory animals...

, mainly because of the conoidal outline of its shell, which is relatively unusual among the Strombidae
Strombidae
Strombidae, commonly known as the true conchs, is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Stromboidea....

. Its stromboid notch
Strombidae
Strombidae, commonly known as the true conchs, is a taxonomic family of medium-sized to very large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Stromboidea....

, though not as conspicuous as observed in many species that used to belong to Strombus
Strombus
Strombus, common name the true conchs, is a genus of medium to large sea snails with an operculum, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Strombidae, the true conchs and their immediate relatives....

(such as Lentigo lentiginosus), is deep and easily distinguished. The interior may be slightly lirate.

The external color of the shell may be either white with an orange, brown/tan pattern of blotches, or completely brown/white. The interior is usually colored strong orange, red or pink, and the inner lip border is black or chocolate brown.

Phylogeny

A cladogram
Cladogram
A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 based on sequences of nuclear histone H3
Histone H3
Histone H3 is one of the five main histone proteins involved in the structure of chromatin in eukaryotic cells. Featuring a main globular domain and a long N-terminal tail, H3 is involved with the structure of the nucleosomes of the 'beads on a string' structure...

 gene and mitochondrial cytochrome-c oxidase I
Main subunit of cytochrome c oxidase
Cytochrome C and Quinol oxidase polypeptide I is main subunit of cytochrome c oxidase complex.Cytochrome c oxidase is a key enzyme in aerobic metabolism. Proton pumping heme-copper oxidases represent the terminal, energy-transfer enzymes of respiratory chains in prokaryotes and eukaryotes...

 (COI) gene showing phylogenetic relationships of (32 analyzed) species that used to belong in the genus Strombus and Lambis
Lambis
Lambis is a genus of large sea snails sometimes known as spider conchs, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Strombidae, the true conch family...

, including Conomurex luhuanus (synonym :Strombus luhuanus), was proposed by Latiolais et al (2006) All species in this cladogram are still given under their original names in Strombus and Lambis :
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