Tortonian Conidae of Crete. New species revealed under UV light. Subgenera Conus (Lautoconus), Conus (Plagioconus) and a possible new subgenus.

Conidae is a very diverse family of carnivorous gastropods with over 900 extant species, that present beautiful colour patterns. These patterns can be useful to biologists for the systematic approach, but lack usually in fossil samples, when they are only observed in natural light. Therefore conid species were difficult to distinguish.
To resolve that problem, we use ultraviolet light to reveal the colour patterns of these fossil shells. Here, we present the second part of a PhD project that attempts to clarify the diversity of the Tortonian Conidae from Crete, Greece. The first part of this project already revealed eleven species of Conilithes Swainson, 1840 and Conus (Kalloconus) da Motta, 1991 five of them being new. In the second part, we found seventeen species, of those seven are considered as new. Among them, ten are attributed to Conus (Lautoconus) Monterosato, 1923 and three in Conus (Plagioconus) Tucker & Tenorio, 2009. Finally, a group of four species with special characteristics is discussed and is proposed as a new subgenus.
This project will greatly enrich the knowledge of the family in  the Tortonian of Eastern Proto-Mediterranean. The results will be compared to similar faunas from the Middle-Miocene to Pliocene of Europe, in order to assess the biogeography of this family.