It’s not the fastest animal going around, but what the cone shell has is patience, persistence and…… venomous harpoons that makes any animal wish it hadn’t crossed paths with it.
In this little video you can see the stromb shell trying to escape. It usually moves around on a big sticky foot, but dangerous situations like this call for more urgent action, so it uses its foot to jump away.
It’s a case of the tortoise and the hare. The stromb is quick to get out of the way, the cone shell; slow, patient and relentless. When the stromb is exhausted the cone pounces (actually it just slimes its way) on the stromb.
In this video you can see the oral siphon (the pink tip and black and white striped organ) smelling out its prey. When the prey is located and locked in on the cone shells proboscis (the bright orange thingy searching) comes out of the mouth, searches for a weak spot on its prey (in this case the soft flesh of the stromb) and delivers the final blow…. A venom loaded harpoon called a radula which paralyses the stromb and it’s eaten whole.
You can actually see the venom in the water, it’s the cloudy substance that comes out of the snail and to the left of the camera.
