Personally, I think that our online database pipedream would do best to
start off easy. In other words, just as you suggested with photos and
descriptions. Keys could come later. Deepwater and subspecies esoterica
later. Or better yet, whenever those who are contributing are ready to
contribute.
I think the beauty of this is the collective effort of many, and the
coordinating discipline of those who will be gatekeepers (perhaps one
"shell czar" as Paul has suggested). Of course the site itself will be
beautiful to behold too.
I vote, let's try to keep it free! Grants can be found, volunteers will
come forward. Czars can be kept happy with some Melongenas.
--David
Durham, NC


>You may have noticed that the folks who have actually constructed keys to
>identification are either telling you that the difficulties of the project
>exceed its virtues, or are being very very quiet.
>
>There are good reasons for this.
>
>My feeling is that it would be easier, and probably more effective for
>those wishing an aid to identification, to post photos and brief
>descriptions of species on the Web than to attempt a key to the
>Mollusca--the second largest phylum. Keys generally are most useful when
>they have only a small number of steps, as in a key to the species of a
>genus, or the genera of a family.
>
>Keys are especially difficult to construct for identifying the higher taxa,
>because taxa are defined wherever possible to reflect actual phylogenetic
>relationships (genealogy), not current similarities in shell form. And the
>more time animal lineages have to diverge, the more likely it is that the
>overall group will not share any one shell feature. For instance, the
>gastropods can be characterized as having a single, expanding helical
>shell, but the exceptions to this "rule" are still obviously more like
>other gastropods than like anything else. It is very hard to define
>"mollusk" at all in morphologic terms that every mollusk must share. (DNA,
>of course, is another matter.)
>
>A good key can be great for identifying good material. As a paleontologist,
>I find keys to be extraordinarily frustrating because I often deal with
>fragments. There are good keys to local floras that accommodate this kind
>of problem (keys using all features of a plant; keys to trees using only
>leaves; keys to trees in winter), but it's not very practical to ask for
>several sets of keys to animals that only a few people study at all (e.g.,
>keys using only bivalve hinges; keys using only sculpture of shell
>fragments; etc.). I find it more effective by far to use a well-illustrated
>guide to a local fauna, or a reference set of actual specimens, than to use
>a key.
>
>So keys are harder to write than you may think, and harder to use also.
>Yes, I am one of the quiet ones who have actually tried to construct keys.
>It's not easy.
>
>If people really want to make a contribution to identification on-line, why
>not set up a site for digital photos of well-identified shells? If space is
>a factor, the photos can be rotated occasionally, or the shells of one
>region can be showcased and then another.
>
>Quietly,
>
>Andrew K. Rindsberg
>Geological Survey of Alabama