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The Conus Linnaeus, 1758 is a large genus of marine gastropod mollusks belonging to the family Conidae. The Conus species are mostly distributed in the tropical waters of the world, and they are especially abundant in the Indo-West Pacific region. To date, more than 600 species, most of which are predatory species, have been named worldwide in this genus and only six species have been recorded in the Korean waters. Conus sponsalis Hwass in Bruguiere, 1792 was collected from Jeju Island and identified as a new Korean record. In this study, we report a description of the shell morphology of the species.

Molecular sequence data are a powerful tool for delimiting species, particularly in cases where morphological differences are obscure. Distinguishing species in the Conus sponsalis complex of tropical marine gastropods has long been difficult, because descriptions and identification has relied exclusively on shell characters, primarily color patterns, and these often appear to intergrade among putative species. Here we use molecular sequence data from two mitochondrial gene regions (16S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit I) and one nuclear locus (a four-loop conotoxin gene) to characterize the genetic discontinuity of the nominal species of this group currently accepted as valid: the Indo-West Pacific C. sponsalis, C. nanus, C. ceylanensis, C. musicus and C. parvatus, and the eastern Pacific C. nux. In these analyses C. nanus and C. sponsalis resolve quite well and appear to represent distinct evolutionary units that are mostly congruent with morphology-based distinctions. We also identified several cryptic entities whose genetic uniqueness suggests species-level distinctions. Two of these fit the original description of C. sponsalis; three forms appear to represent C. nanus but differ in adult shell size or possess a unique shell color pattern.