Purpose of the Encyclopedia
Access to literature and collections is tedious compared to the facilities of the web. We therefore accumulated all images we took from shells in Conchology, Inc. and organize these in the present Encyclopedia so that all concerned have access to a gigantic collection, which is now dispersed in a great number of collections all over the world.
For small quantities, these images can be used for free “on demand” (with authorization of Conchology, Inc.) by scientists, naturalists or journalists who want to promote interest in nature, as long as the ©-source is mentioned. But Conchology, Inc. also sells large or even huge quantities of images.
Methods
DETERMINATION
When shells are filmed and documented in Conchology, Inc., a first determination is made by the “encoder”. We can distinguish different kinds of documented shells:
Philippines shells from which data were collected from the supplier, most often vocal. These data are occasionally fake as suppliers tend to keep locality data vague or even false. This was so in Cuming’s time and is still as such today. However, a tremendous effort is made in Conchology to get correct data – this included travels to the collecting spots – and a large majority of these data is now trustworthy.
Philippine shells that we collected ourselves – most often with our ships Guphil I and II. These shells always have the mention “Guphil” in the locality data. For foreign shells, the specimens are encoded with the data received with the shells. We do our best to get accurately documented shells whenever possible.
The first determination is always verified and then corrected by Guido T. Poppe or Sheila P. Tagaro. This we can call A second determination.
Shells are then uploaded in our regular listings and appear also in the Encyclopedia.
As for the determination of the shells, we use the constantly growing and updated library of Conchology, Inc. which is now the largest in Asia with over 2450 books and major articles and 4 400 numbers of journals. Apart from this we have at our disposal over 700 pdf-works that have been dispersed for free on the web.
CLASSIFICATION
The Classifications used are mainly based on the works of
- Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) – for marine Gastropoda.
- Schileyko ( 1998-2007) – for land snails.
- Mikkelsen & Bieler (2008) – for bivalves.
We also use occasionally: Thiele (1931-35), Wenz (1938-1944) and Vaught (1989).
A considerable effort is made to apply modern classifications, but with exceptions. The tendency today in science is occasionally to “mark points”, which gave rise in some cases to excessive splitting, or excessive lumping. In such cases, we take a subjective “on the moment” decision what to follow, based mainly on “gut feeling” as it is called. Gut feeling has proved to be a quite accurate method despite the fact it is not scientific – as has been proven by later molecular studies in several groups. An example of such a decision is not to follow the adhesion of TRIDACNIDAE to CARDIIDAE as a subfamily. We feel both groups are quite distinct, but should and will approve sooner or later the move of Corculum to Tridacnidae (as already “felt” by Haeckel a century ago – and confirmed by my own observations in nature). Another out of several such decisions is to keep "Amathina tricarinata" in CAPULIDAE as Capulus tricarinatus and not in AMATHINIDAE, as suggested by some.
TERMINOLOGY
The origin of the Encyclopedia is a sales list with a proper terminology, which has more practical and distinguishing features as "pure science" allows today. Indeed, still a majority of scientists do not agree with the use of form names, while these form names have their "real importance". This is either because their use gives rise to too much extra work and research, or because of tradition - a relict of the gigantic lumping of in the 20th century.
Apart from that, we stick to the scientific methods as close as possible in the use of the nomenclature.
Subspecies are mentioned as trinomen:
Arestorides argus argus : for the normal A. argus from the central Indo-Pacific.
Arestorides argus contrastriata: for the east African subspecies.
Form names or variants are mentioned in CAPS
Arestorides argus contrastriata DWARF: for a dwarf race within the subspecies of east Africa.
Whenever "official" form names have been proposed, we use these, but again in CAPS:
Barycypraea fultoni AMORIMI : we feel this is not a subspecies, but a heavy form which occurs within the
typical populations.
In the absence of form names, we use DESCRIPTIVE FORM names such as ORANGE, RED, DWARF, GIANT, OLANGO FORM etc….
In this case, the author is the author of species or subspecies for which these names are used. We hope however that some brave souls will make official at least some of these form names that often represent always returning forms within species-populations.
Species and subspecies names are NOT IN ITALIC for reasons of easy reading only.
When handling enormous amounts of collected materials, one struggles with the scientific impediment, which is gigantic today. At the present rate that science works it will take over 1000 years before most of the species will be described.
To handle these undescribed species (or species we could not determinate with our means), we go down to genus level wherever possible and join a number per species or subspecies:
The numbers 001 and up concern Philippine shells.
The numbers starting at 100 are for non-Philippine shells.
PRESENT STATE OF THE DATABASE
With a constantly changing taxonomy and a constant flux of new knowledge, the database is NEVER "finished". Since the appearance "on-line" we started reworking and refining the database and filtered out already thousands of mistakes. At present we handled the families from A to Co – only the first pages of the CONIDAE have been reworked. We hope to finish this job by the end of 2011.
We did ask dozens of experts in various families to keep an eye on the online shells, but among all, only one managed the considerable effort to update constantly his field of expertise over a 7-year period. This is Jan Johan ter Poorten, expert and author on CARDIIDAE. All our congratulations and respect for his work and generosity in knowledge.
I take the opportunity to gently ask experts to transmit obvious mistakes. We usually handle these in a short period of time and put online within 2 weeks the ameliorated version of the database.
Finally, it has to be pointed out that still many taxonomic and nomenclatoral positions reflect what is shown in literature today and to which I do not necessarily agree. The database is merely a reflection of the up to date status in mollusks, not a personal subjective statement, although this may be so in some exceptional cases.
CONTACTS
For more precise questions and/or information on the Encyclopedia, contact
guido@conchology.be or sheila@conchology.be
Suggestions for amelioration and corrections are welcome
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bouchet, Ph. & Rocroi, J.-P.
- 2005 Classification and Nomenclator of Gastropod Families. – Malacologia.
- International Journal of Malacology. ConchBooks, Hackenheim. Vol. 47 (1-2): 397 pp.
Mikkelsen, P. M. & Bieler, R.
- 2008 Seashells of Southern Florida. Living Marine Mollusks of the Florida Keys and Adjacent Regions. Bivalves. – Princeton University Press. 503 pp.
Schileyko, A. A.
- 1998-2007 Treatise on Recent Terrestrial Pulmonate Molluscs. Vols. 1-15.
Thiele, J.
- 1931 Handbuch der Systematischen Weichtierkunde. – Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena. Vol. 1: vi + 778 pp.
- 1935 Handbuch der Systematischen Weichtierkunde. – Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena. Vol. 2: v + 779-1154
Vaught, K. C.
- 1989 A Classification of the Living Mollusca. – American Malacologists, Inc. Melbourne, Florida, USA. 195 pp.
Wenz, W.
-
1938 [reprint 1961-1962] Handbuch der Paläozoologie, Vol. 6 (1). Gastropoda. Teil I. Allgemeiner Teil und Amphigastropoda und Streptoneura. – Gebrüder Borntraeger, Berlin. 1639 pp.
- 1938-44 Gastropoda. Teil I: Allgemeiner Teil und Prosobranchia (Amphigastropoda u. Streptoneura). Berlin-Zehlendorf. 1639 pp.
