| Californiconus Temporal range:
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| Apertural view of shell of Californiconus californicus (Reeve, 1844), measuring 29.1 mm in height, collected at low tide in Huntington Beach, California | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Mollusca |
| Class: | Gastropoda |
| Subclass: | Caenogastropoda |
| Order: | Neogastropoda |
| Superfamily: | Conoidea |
| Family: | Conidae |
| Genus: | Californiconus Tucker & Tenorio, 2009 |
| Type species | |
| Conus californicus Reeve, 1844
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Californiconus is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. The experts at WoRMS place this group of species in the family Conidae, the cone snails, but some other experts placed previously the genus in a proposed family, the Conilithidae.[1] This is a monotypic genus.
Use of this genus in the binomial name of this species was, until 2015, treated by the experts at WoRMS as an "alternative representation" of the species. (When the "alternative representation" was not used, this species was still placed in the Linnaean genus Conus.)
In 2015 Puillandre et al. placed Conus californicus as the sole member of its own genus as Californiconus californicus [2] This species has always been considered a species with unique characteristics within Conidae, because it shows diverging molecular (including toxicological) and morphological characteristics. Its generalist diet includes fish, other molluscs and worms, contrary to what is the case in other cone snail species, which have more specialized diets.[3][4]
- ^ Californiconus Tucker & Tenorio, 2009. Retrieved through: World Register of Marine Species on 10/01/11.
- ^ Puillandre, N. (2014). "One, four or 100 genera? A new classification of the cone snails". Journal of Molluscan Studies. 81 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1093/mollus/eyu055. PMC 4541476. PMID 26300576.
- ^ Elliger, C.A.; Richmond, T.A.; Lebaric, Z.N.; Pierce, N.T.; Sweedler, J.V.; Gilly, W.F. (2011). "Diversity of conotoxin types from Conus californicus reflects a diversity of prey types and a novel evolutionary history". Toxicon. 57 (2): 311–322. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2010.12.008. PMC 3125295. PMID 21172372.
- ^ Kohn, A.J. (1966). "Food specialization in Conus in Hawaii and California". Ecology. 47 (6): 1041–1043. doi:10.2307/1935652. JSTOR 1935652.