Range: Indonesia and Sulu Sea to Queensland, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.

Description: Medium-sized to moderately large, moderately light to moderately solid. Last whorl narrowly cylindrical to narrowly conoid-cylindrical; outline almost straight and nearly parallel-sided at adapical two-thirds, with attenuated sides below. Shoulder angulate to rounded. Spire of moderate height; outline straight or concave. Larval shell of about 2.25 whorls, maximum diameter about 0.85 mm. First 4-5 postnuclear whorls tuberculate. Teleoconch sutural ramps slightly convex, with 3-4 spiral grooves. Last whorl with fine, closely spaced spiral ribs from base to shoulder.

Ground colour white, sometimes tinged with pink or violet. Last whorl with irregular light reddish brown blotches usually fusing into 3 broad transverse bands, below shoulder, at centre and within basal third. Spiral bands occasionally connected by axial streaks. In some localities (e.g. Vanuatu, Solomon Is., New Caledonia), the last whorl also has spiral rows of tiny brown dots or dashes. Larval whorls white. Postnuclear sutural ramps with scattered brown spots. Aperture white.

Habitat and Habits: In 10-50 m in sand and rubble.

Discussion: Walls [1979] synonymized C. artoptus with C. viola Cernohorsky, but the latter species has a grey to purplish red ground colour, a smooth last whorl except for a few spiral ribs basally, and only the first 1-3.5 postnuclear whorls weakly tuberculate. C. austroviola differs in its generally broader last whorl (RD 0.45-0.51), generally higher spire (RSH 0.14-0.19), bluish grey to brown colouration, and in its smoother last whorl with a few spiral ribs at base. C. nussatella can be distinguished from C. artoptus by its convex spire outline, distinct brown blotches on the teleoconch spire, and its last whorl pattern predominantly of spiral rows of reddish brown spots. In addition, C. nussatella has the maximum diameter of the last whorl generally closer to the base (PMD 0.60-0.77) and more postnuclear whorls tuberculate.

C. artoptus range map

This section contains verbatim reproductions of the accounts of 316 species of Conus from the Indo-Pacific region, from Manual of the Living Conidae, by Röckel, Korn and Kohn (1995). They are reproduced with the kind permission of the present publisher, Conchbooks.

All plates and figures referred to in the text are also in Röckel, Korn & Kohn, 1995. Manual of the Living Conidae Vol. 1: Indo-Pacific Region.

The range maps have been modified so that each species account has it own map, rather than one map that showed the ranges of several species in the original work. This was necessary because each species account is on a separate page on the website and not confined to the order of accounts in the book.