Range: W. Australia from Albany to Monte Bello Is.

Description: Moderately small to medium-sized, moderately solid. Last whorl broadly or broadly ventricosely conical; outline almost straight to slightly convex. Aperture somewhat wider at base than at shoulder. Shoulder angulate or subangulate, tuberculate to strongly tuberculate. Spire usually high, stepped, with straight to convex outline. Postnuclear spire whorls tuberculate. Teleoconch sutural ramps flat to slightly concave; middle and late ramps with regularly spaced axial threads and 5 increasing to 7 spiral grooves. Last whorl with fine axial and spiral ribbons producing a cancellate surface.

Ground colour ivory white. Last whorl with 2 often broad zones of pale rose below subshoulder area and at base, occasionally with interrupted spiral bands of irregular light brown markings. Larval shell white. Aperture white or with external rose zones visible. Periostracum olive, thin, almost opaque and smooth, often absent from spiral zones below shoulder and at base; edges of periostracal bands usually black.

Foot white, with narrow, transverse, rose anterior edges above and below pedal gland. Rostrum white mottled with tan, may be tipped with green. Siphon white tipped with pink, with dark brown transverse markings, fewer and smaller ventro-laterally and sometimes arranged in 2 groups (Kohn, 1993).

Habitat and Habits: Intertidal and subtidal; living in algal turf on limestone benches, in pockets of clean sand on reefs and in clean sand around rocks, avoiding mud or muddy sand (Turnbull, pers. comm., 1987; Kohn, 1993). C. dorreensis feeds on polychaetes (Turnbull, pers. comm., 1987; Kohn & Almasi, 1993). Oviposition occurs on the outer or inner portion of intertidal flats and under overhanging portions of the platforms. Egg capsules affixed to the underside of red algae plants or to the underside of limestone rocks; spawn arranged in rows of 2-12 capsules. Capsule size from 6-7 x 5-6 mm to 10.5 x 10.5 mm, number of eggs per capsule mass from about 10,000 to about 71,000. Egg diameter of 150-160 micrometers suggests a minimum pelagic period of 28-27 days (Kohn, 1993).

Discussion: C. dorreensis does not appear to be closely related to other species of Conus; it cannot be confused with any of its congeners.

C. dorreensis 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.