The cone snails or cone shells, sometimes simply known as "cones", are the popular name for snails or snail shells in the family Conidae, a taxonomic group of related organisms. That family contains only a single genus, Conus, which has about 500 living species. Cone snails are medium-sized to large, sophisticated predatory sea snails, marine gastropodmollusks
The shells of cone snails are shaped roughly like an ice-cream cone. The narrow end of the cone shell is the anterior end, and the wide end shows the usually very low spire of the gastropod shell.
These snails hunt and immobilize prey using a modified radular tooth along with a poison gland containing neurotoxins; this is launched out of its mouth in a harpoon-like action.