At 06.05 07/03/98 EST, you wrote:
> In my quest to attain the Neritidae-family and by the way thanks to some
real
> nice folks in Conch land I now have 41 different. I have run into the
problem
>of
> understanding subspecies and synonyms. Is subspecies a different shell? What
> are synonyms? I thought a synonym was the same with a different name,but if
> this is true why a different Author?
 
A synonym is a name given to a shell which has been already named by
another person.
This is why you find a different author: because another person described
the same shell giving it a new name not being aware that the same species
had already been described and named by another one.
 
>If anyone has a list of this family and could
> help me I would appreciate it very much. Any literature or names of books I
>could
> get.
 
I have not seen any specific reference with Neritidae. They usually are
scattered in many geographical monographs.
However, I could find the following reference in the bibliography of the
'Compendium of seashells' by Abbott & Dance:
Russell H.D., 1941 - The recent mollusks of the family Neritidae of the
Western Atlantic.- Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoology (Harvard), 88: 345-404
 
Hoping this could be of help,                           Paolo
 
--------------------------------
Paolo G. Albano
Bologna, Italy
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