Radular tooth: Terminating cusp and serrations are internal; the anterior section of the tooth is much longer than the posterior section of the tooth; the blade and barb are short; a basal spur is present.
Shell characters: Nodules persist; anal notch is moderately deep; the operculum is large; the periostracum is tufted; the protoconch has 2.5 whorls.

Arubaconus: Shell small for subfamily, obese and inflated, distinctly ovate in shape; spire low, turbinate, with indented sutures and rounded whorls; shoulder rounded, sloping, blending directly into body whorl; body whorl ornamented with 13-15 evenly spaced, large, beaded spiral cords; siphonal canal short, truncated, ornamented with 6-8 spiral cords; body whorl colored black or dark blackish-brown, with variable amounts of large, amorphous white flammules, often arranged in two main bands; anterior end purple; spire whorls white with evenly spaced thin black flammules; aperture proportionally wide, becoming wider toward anterior end; interior of aperture dark brownish-purple with 2 wide white bands. Type Species: Conus hieroglyphus Duclos, 1833, endemic to Aruba Island, Dutch West Indies (ABC Islands), by monotypy.
Discussion: The only known species of Arubaconus, A. hieroglyphus, resembles no other liv¬ing western Atlantic cone shell. With its stumpy inflated body whorl, rounded shoulder, and turbinate spire, the living Aruban endemic species somewhat resembles the fossil Conus isomitratus Dall, 1896 from the Burdigalian Miocene Chipola formation of northern Florida. This early Miocene species differs from the living A. hieroglyphus in being a larger shell and in lacking the strong beaded spiral cords around the body whorl. The Florida fossil may represent the oldest known member of Arubaconus, demonstrating that the genus evolved in the Chipolan Subprovince of the Baitoan province. If so, then A. hieroglyphus can be considered a Miocene relict taxon.

Ductoconus is the only nodulose subgenus that has the radular tooth greatly elongated due to the elongated anterior section of the tooth. In this feature, it resembles species included in Spuriconus, but species included in that genus do not have nodules. Ductoconus and Spuriconus do not seem to be closely related. Our analysis places Ductoconus with a group of West Atlantic and East Pacific subgenera as well as an Indo-Pacific one (Kioconus).

The only species included in the genus occurs in the East Pacific region.