---
title: Livid Cone (Conus lividus)
scientific_name: Conus lividus
common_name: Livid Cone
taxon: Prosobranchia
published: 2026-08-11T15:43:16.946Z
updated: 2026-08-11T18:57:41.186Z
tags: Livid Cone, Conus lividus, Prosobranchia, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/prosobranchia/livid-cone
---

# Livid Cone (*Conus lividus*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Prosobranchia (*Prosobranchia*)
- **Size:** up to 5.5 cm
- **Depth:** 0-20 m
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Nocturnal
- **Rarity:** Common
- **Habitat:** Shallow reef flats and rubble, under stones by day
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Gonochoric
- **Hazard:** Venomous

## How to recognise it

- squat olive-brown cone with a pale band around the middle
- shoulder ridged and knobbed, unlike the smooth shoulder of the tent cones
- dark brown periostracum often flaking off in patches
- shell to about 5.5 cm

A squat olive-brown cone with a pale band around its waist and a knobbed shoulder, rarely more than 5.5 cm (2.2 in). The dark furry outer layer that covers a living shell flakes off in patches, so the animal on the reef looks nothing like the polished specimen in a collection.

This is the common cone of shallow reef flats, wedged under rubble by day and out hunting at night. Unlike its tent-patterned relatives it eats worms rather than snails or fish, which makes it far less dangerous - the venom of a worm hunter is tuned to a worm's nervous system. A sting still hurts like a bad wasp, and the animal still deserves to be left where it is.

How a cone hunts depends on what it hunts. Worm eaters like this one hold the harpoon and pull the prey in like a fishing line; the fish hunters release the tooth entirely and let the venom do the work; the snail eaters do both. All three strategies run through the same organ, and the family has been rewriting it for fifty million years.

## Also known as

- **English:** Livid cone
- **Japanese:** イボシマイモ
- **Chinese:** 晚霞芋螺
- **Russian:** Конус ливидус

## Scientific synonyms

- *Conus (Lividoconus) lividus* Hwass, 1792
- *Conus lividus var. detritus* Menke, 1830
- *Conus plebejus* Link, 1807
- *Conus primula* Reeve, 1849
- *Conus virgo var. fasciata* Menke, 1828
- *Cucullus monachos* Röding, 1798
- *Lividoconus lividus* (Hwass, 1792)

## Range

Indian Ocean, Mozambique, New Zealand, Red Sea, South Africa, Tanzania

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/invertebrate/molluscs/prosobranchia/livid-cone)*
*Updated: August 11, 2026*