The “St. Thomas Cone” is a very handsome classic rarity among the cones ranging from southern Philippines to Indonesia, famed for being selected as one of S. Peter Dance’s 50 “Rare Shells” (1969). It was known in the western world since around the beginning of 18th Century, most specimens seemed to come from Moluccas, Indonesia. However as it is a rather deep-water shell it is not surprising that it remained very rare until late 20th Century; today, it is only uncommon as deep-water tangle nets in the Philippines frequently bring fine specimens to surface.

A carnivorous and predatory gastropod mainly feeding on polychaete worms, it inhabits a bathymetric range of around -100~250m. The sharp edged and refined form is little-varied; the pattern is quite variable although the three brown spiral bands are present regularly. Typical shell length around 70mm, extremely large specimens may exceed 95mm. – Adapted from Chong Chen’s post