A new species of Nitidiclavus (Neogastropoda: Drilliidae) from the Miocene Paratethys and an overview of the paleoecology and distribution of related species in the Cainozoic of Europe

A new Paratethyan species of the middle Miocene (Serravallian) conoidean gastropod of the family Drilliidae Olsson, 1964 is described. Rare finds of Nitidiclavus senesi spec. nov. have been obtained from the marine sediments exposed in the eastern marginal part of the Vienna Basin in Slovakia (Western Carpathians). The shells were collected from the calcareous clays of the upper Badenian Studienka Formation exposed in the former clay pit of the locality Rohožník-Konopiská. Under UV light, the shell surface of some specimens had residual colour patterns, which represent the first known evidence of these exceptional features for the genus Nitidiclavus. The species from Rohožník is also compared with other similar taxa from the European Cainozoic. As suggested by the sedimentology at the studied locality, N. senesi spec. nov. lived on a soft, muddy bottom in the circalittoral zone, in a habitat influenced by lowered water dynamics and occasional hypoxia. Preferred paleo-ecological conditions and geographic and stratigraphic distribution of Nitidiclavus in the North-East Atlantic and circum-Mediterranean regions are briefly discussed and summarized.