Range: Japan to Philippines; New Caledonia; probably Red Sea (Dahlak Archipelago).

Description: Moderately small to medium-sized, moderately solid. Last whorl conical to pyriform; outline almost straight to variably sigmoid, gradually or abruptly constricted at basal third. Shoulder angulate to carinate, with a deep exhalent notch. Spire of moderate height to high, variably stepped; outline concave. Larval shell of 3-3.5 whorls, maximum diameter 0.9-1 mm. First 5-8 postnuclear whorls tuberculate. Teleoconch sutural ramps flat or concave, with strong radial threads crossing 0-1 increasing to 4-6 major spiral grooves; sometimes about 6 additional minor grooves in last whorls. Last whorl with spiral ribbons or ribs and ribbons from base to shoulder; ribs mainly below shoulder and at base.

Ground colour white. Below shoulder and at centre, last whorl encircled with 2 weak or distinct bands composed of light brown dots and flecks; occasionally basal third with an additional brown band, and ground colour areas with irregular dotted lines. Larval whorls white to beige. First 0-3 postnuclear sutural ramps variably suffused with brown; following ramps with scattered or regular brown radial markings. Aperture white.

Periostracum greyisholive, opaque, with interlaced axial ridges on last whorl and spire.

Habitat and Habits: In 50-420 m. In New Caledonia, specimens have been collected outside the lagoon in 335-420 m (Richard, pers. comm., 1991).

Discussion: This species has often been called C. cancellatus, but the holotype of that taxon represents a similar W. Atlantic species. C. pagodas resembles C. arcuatus from the Panamic Province; however, the latter species differs in its narrower and weaker grooves around the last whorl and in the absence of spiral grooves on its sutural ramps. Among Indo-Pacific species, C. boholensis and C. asiaticus lovellreevei have the most similar colour pattern. C. asiaticus has a lower spire (RSH 0.15-0.20) and a narrower last whorl (0.53-0.59) that is not pyriform; its larval shell is also narrower (0.7-0.8 mm) and has fewer whorls (2-2.5), and its periostracum is smooth and translucent. For comparison with C. boholensis, see the Disussion of that species.

C. pagodus 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.