Ross Mayhew wrote:

> Classically, genera were defined solely on the basis of conchological and sometimes radular
> charactaristics as well.  However, with the advent of genetical analysis, it seems inevitable that
> some genera and other "higher order" taxa will be spit up, modified, or even defined at least partly
> on the basis of this type of analysis.
>   My question is: has this started to occur already (example(s)?), and if it does, how is the
> chonchologist without access to such advanced equipment to "corectly" assign new species to genera??
> Curious in Canada,
> Ross M.
>

--
Hello!
 Yes Mayhew it has started long ago. Sounds like you do not live on the 3rd rock from the sun.
If you dont have access to the equipment you simply do as all the other malacologists/conchologists
have done in the past; group similar species under whatever genus you think is right. The phylogenetic
workers using data from 12s and 16s rDNA sequences will  get to your stuff eventually and
set it right if you screwed up. Many times they simply assert your original work.

Do not worry, the molluscs keep "trucking", they do not seem to care a bit about name calling
or what ethnic group they belong to.

I suppose it does mess up collection labels though but not more so than all of the revisions
we have to date. Do what the museums do, just keep all the labels in order of precedence
with the specimen.

Later,

Emilio Jorge Power

Please visit;
"The Liguus Home Page"
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Gold/9440/liguus/lighompa.html
West Melbourne, Florida  USA