Conus ventricosus Gmelin, 1791 van Kreta

n 2010 and 2011 the author collected many specimens of the common Mediterranean cone species Conus ventricosus at the Greek island of Crete. The specimens were collected in the eastern and western parts of the island. The morphological variation (shape, colour, pattern) of the shell proved to be very large. The author reviews several considerations about species concepts in biology and wonders whether C. ventricosus is a group of closely related species (i.e., a species complex) or merely a species with a large degree of intraspecific variation.