Let's back the truck up a little.  Although the Compendium of Land shells
by Tucker Abbott is very useful for the collector and professional alike,
it is by no means a checklist of the land snails of the world.  I assume
this is the reference referred to by Andrew Rindsberg.  It only illustrates
a very small fraction of the known fauna, gives an adequate bibliography
and is riddled with errors (through no fault of Tucker's.  It's just the
nature of the beast . . . publishing a book is Hell, publishing a book on a
confusing group is a bigger Hell).  There is no checklist of the land
snails of the world, but there are several good people out there putting
together pieces of the puzzle.
 
Kurt
 
 
At 06:10 PM 10/30/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>So it will take a lot of work to compile even a rough checklist of the
>>world's molluscan species. But we will probably have that within a few
>>years, as the Zoological Record digitizes its back issues.
>
>Actually, the Zoological Record is not digitizing its back issues as far as
>I'm aware, because they can't make money by doing so. They are not breaking
>even just keeping up with what is being named; the deficit is subsidized by
>their parent company BIOSIS.
>
>The organization that _is_ trying to coordinate compilation of lists of
>valid species worldwide is Species 2000 <http://www.sp2000.org/>.  My
>Western Atlantic database is affiliated with Species 2000. I am hoping that
>my database will become global in scope for mollusk species, including
>illustrations. More details will follow as plans and funding solidify.
>
>By the way, the Zoological Record lists how many molluscan taxa have been
>named, and how many synonymized in the last 20 years, at
><http://www.york.biosis.org/triton/taxstats/moll.htm>
>
>They tally 28,237 new species and 4,000 new synonyms.
>
>Gary
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Gary Rosenberg, Ph.D.                     [log in to unmask]
>Malacology & Invertebrate Paleontology    gopher://erato.acnatsci.org
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