Range: N. Australia.

Description: Medium-sized, moderately light to moderately solid. Last whorl usually narrowly conoid-cylindrical to narrowly ovate; outline slightly convex at upper two-thirds, tapering towards base. Shoulder subangulate to rounded. Spire of moderate height; outline almost straight or slightly domed with an elevated apex. Larval shell of 2.0-2.25 whorls, maximum diameter 0.9 mm. First 4-6 postnuclear whorls tuberculate; later whorls distinctly stepped. Teleoconch sutural ramps flat to slightly convex, with 2 increasing to 4-6 spiral grooves. Last whorl with several widely spaced spiral ribs toward base, more closely spaced at base.

Ground colour bluish grey to dark violet-brown. Last whorl encircled with a variable number of darker brown bands, usually leaving intervening ground-colour bands near centre and below shoulder. Median area bearing dark brown markings varying in size and number. Overlying variably spaced solid, dotted or dashed brown spiral lines from base to shoulder. Larval whorls light brown. First postnuclear sutural ramps pale brown to pale violet; following ramps bluish grey, with brown radial blotches. Aperture white or violet behind a translucent marginal zone.

Habitat and Habits: Reported from about 8-12 m under rocks.

Discussion: In 1977, Cernohorsky renamed C. violaceus, Reeve as C. viola (q.v.) and gave a new description on the basis of the type specimens in the BMNH. He included shells from northern Australia in this taxon and referred to them as "the banded form" or "dark coloured specimens of C. viola". In 1992, Röckel & Korn described this form as C. austroviola. It differs from C. viola in the following characters: C. viola has a smaller shell with its last whorl colour pattern dominated by reddish violet instead of dull brownish tones, a smaller number of tuberculate spire whorls (first 0.5-3.5), a greater number (about 3) variably red or pale yellow larval whorls, and less pronounced spiral sculpture on the late sutural ramps.

C. austroviola 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.