Numerous Crabs and Lobsters represent the _Crustacea_; but the most important of the Miocene Articulate Animals are the _Insects_. Of these, more than thirteen hundred species have been determined by Dr Heer from the Miocene strata of Switzerland alone. They include almost all the existing orders of insects, such as numerous and varied forms of Beetles (_Coleoptera_), Forest-bugs (_Hemiptera_), Ants (_Hymenoptera_), Flies (_Diptera_), Termites and Dragon-flies (_Neuroptera_), Grasshoppers (_Orthoptera_), and Butterflies (_Lepidoptera_). One of the latter, the well-known _Vanessa Pluto_ of the Brown Coals of Croatia, even exhibits the pattern of the wing, and to some extent its original coloration; whilst the more durably-constructed insects are often in a state of exquisite preservation. [Illustration: Fig. 238.--Different views of _Scutella subrotunda_, a Miocene "Cake-Urchin" from the south of France.] The _Mollusca_ of the Miocene period are very numerous, but call for little special comment. Upon the whole, they are generically very similar to the Shell-fish of the present day; whilst, as before stated, from fifteen to thirty per cent of the _species_ are identical with those now in existence. So far as the European area is concerned, the Molluscs indicate a decidedly hotter climate than the present one, though they have not such a distinctly tropical character as is the case with the Eocene shells. Thus we meet with many Cones, Volutes, Cowries, Olive-shells, Fig-shells, and the like, which are decidedly indicative of a high temperature of the sea. _Polyzoans_ are abundant, and often attain considerable dimensions; whilst _Brachiopods_, on the other hand, are few in number. Bivalves and _Univalves_ are extremely plentiful; and we meet here with the shells of Winged-Snails (_Pteropods_), belonging to such existing genera as _Hyalea_ (fig. 239) and _Cleodora_. Lastly, the _Cephalopods_ are represented both by the chambered shells of _Nautili_ and by the internal skeletons of Cuttle-fishes (_Spirulirostra_.) [Illustration: Fig. 239.--Different views of the shell of _Hyalea Orbignyana_, a Miocene Pteropod.] The _Fishes_ of the Miocene Period are very abundant but of little special importance. Besides the remains of Bony Fishes, we meet in the marine deposits of this age with numerous pointed teeth belonging to different kinds of Sharks. Some of the genera of these--such as _Carcharodon_ (fig. 241), _Oxyrhina_ (fig. 240), _Lamna_, and _Galeocerdo_--are very widely distributed, ranging through both the Old and New Worlds; and some of the species attain gigantic dimensions.