ABSTRACT
Marine snails form the dominant component of molluscan faunas throughout the world’s oceans. Although families such as the cowries, cone snails, and murex snails may be the best known due to their attractive shells and often-bright colors, large numbers of ecologically important species are either drab, or small to microscopic in size. The superfamily Conoidea includes chiefly the cone snails (Family: Conidae), turrid snails (Family: Turridae), and Auger snails (Family: Terebridae). Though all these snails are venomous, the cone snails assume greater significance owing to their greater diversity and toxins. There are about 600 different species of cone snails, all of which are poisonous (Hazardous Marine Life-https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/health/hazardous-marine-life/ cone-snails). Though larger cone species which prey on small bottomdwelling fish (piscivores) of cone snails are potentially dangerous, the sting of (mollusc eating-molluscivores and worm eating-vermivores) smaller species are likely to be no worse than a bee sting. Most of the cone snails that hunt and eat marine worms are probably not a real risk to humans, with the possible exception of larger species such as Conus vexillum or C.quercinus (Anderson and Bokor, 2012; https://diogenes. hubpages.com/hub/The-Conus-Cone-Shells-Beautiful-and-Deadly; https://www.coneshell.net/Pages/pa_cones_venom.htm).
