Range: Lesser Sunda Islands, N. of Timor; Flores.

Description: Moderately small to medium-sized, generally moderately light. Last whorl ventricosely conical to conoid-cylindrical; outline slightly convex at adapical two-thirds, straight below; left side may be sigmoid. Aperture wider at base than near shoulder. Shoulder angulate. Spire of low to moderate height, outline concave. Larval shell of 2.25-2.5 whorls, maximum diameter 0.8-0.9 mm. Teleoconch sutural ramps flat, with 1 increasing to 3-4 major spiral grooves. Basal third to half of last whorl with wide spiral grooves at base and narrow grooves above; ribbons between grade to ribs at anterior end.

Ground colour white. Last whorl with yellow to redbrown reticulated lines, edging variably sized white tents and blotches. Pattern fuses into very interrupted to solid spiral bands of varying width above and below centre. Within colour bands, axially arranged dark lines, sometimes with a few spiral rows of alternating brown and white tents. Shells with a rather fine network that is only slightly concentrated on each side of centre (described as C. wittigi) (Pl. 37, Figs. 30, 31) intergrade with shells with a coarse brown network and broad rather solid brown spiral bands (described as C. kongaensis) (Pl. 37, Figs. 32, 33). Larval whorls beige. Postnuclear sutural ramps with orange to brown radial lines and blotches. Aperture white; in specimens described as C. kongaensis, aperture sometimes brown deep within.

Habitat and Habits: In shallow water; C. wittigi reported from 3- 10 m, on fine sand near living coral or in coral pockets; specimens described as C. kongaensis "in 1-3 m" (Ormas, pers. comm., 1992) "in an area of grey lava sand and volcanic stones with sparse vegetation except for patches of eelgrass and mangroves" (da Motta, 1984).

Discussion: C. wittigi may be similar to some variants of C. spectrum; for comparison, see the Discussion of the latter species. Shells described as C. kongaensis differ from those described as C. wittigi ("C. wittigi occurs in a nearby island" da Motta, 1984) in having generally broader last whorls, often slightly wider apertures, darker larval shells, and coarser reticulate pattern with pronounced, red-brown spiral bands. However, the continuous intergradation between the shells of both forms suggests conspecificity.

C. wittigi 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.