Art,

After a bit of research I was able to come up with some firm figures for
you.  We are talking big numbers at the family level and immense numbers at
the generic level and unbelievable numbers at the sub-genera level.  I now
know this because I once made the statement on this list that I was trying
to get a representative sample of each family.  Numerous spear, arrow, and
shotgun wounds later I was made to understand  I was being a bit naive (to
put it nicely, many of the responses put it a bit more firmly).

However, all of that aside, I think some sort of effort could prove
workable.  One of the things I like about Eisenberg's book is his statement
up front that there are only about 2,500 collectable shells (and the
missiles head my way again).  I think he is a bit low in that number, but it
helped him limit and define his coverage for his book.  He goes on to say
(or at least I interpret him to say) he eliminated micros, deep sea, very
rare or not available, and most subspecies.  He also, like most world wide
shell books, pretends like turrids do not exist.  So, maybe, if your idea
was approached with an upfront limit -- a limiting criteria and a target no
lower than the genus level (I personally believe the sub-genera are too much
in flux to use), it could be done.

This is not to say we could build a key.  Those are very technical
structures, lots of rules and tough to do right for just a few species or
genera.  But a descriptive text and an illustration for each genus ought to
be do-able!  The families (and associated genera) could be "parceled" out
and everyone doing the research and writing could be given a format, a
glossary of terms to use, and a sample or two.    The really tough part
(other than the unbelievable coordination required) would be locating the
original type description for each genus.  Without that you would be sure to
miss some key distinguishing features.

I personally built something similar on my computer for my own use.  It is
limited to the family level but contains a description and an image of each
family I have (well, not each as it is still in progress and I haven't even
touched the bivalves yet -- but I have most of the familiar gastropods
done).  I have the image, followed by the description, and then a list of
known species.  I built it like a web page with links to various pages and
eventually hoped to have an available image for many of the species.
Because it is on my hard drive and not for distribution (it is very, very
large - memory wise), I stole shell images shamelessly from the web.  I now
have to go back and replace all that I can with images from my own
collection so I don't need to worry about copyright hassles.

So there you have it.  A little more fuel for your unattainable fantasy.

Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA


> I started this thing---so I get to comment from time to time.
>         What I am thinking about is being able to distinguish shells down
to
> the Sub-generic level. (How to tell a Plotzconus from an Umlautconus)
> NOT how to distinguish at the species level. You individual experts can
> do that. I'm thinking about a book that shows the distinguisments AND
> illustrates them---where to look on the shell. What numbers are we
> talking about? What numbers are we talking about if we limit it to
> univalves?
>         Q-Man
>