Hi Alan,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. WoRMS has been one of the main sources for the changes I have been making to our taxonomy. I decided not to mention what we use so that I could get the most honest answers as possible. To be honest, I'm a pretty big fan of WoRMS and your work as well. I have a copy of Conus of the Southeastern United States and Caribbean at home and your information and images are fantastic. Seeing the images of the radular tooth was a great addition as well.
Our reasoning for using only the genus Conus is that it's a time/man power issue. When a genus or species level change occurs in a part of the collection we are working with that information has to be updated in our database, changed physically on the specimen's catalog tag, and changed in the hand written catalog. A single genus or species change can effect a multitude of specimens and its been very difficult to keep up with that.
Again, thank you for responding and sharing your advice.
Best Regards,
Gary L. Kidder
Inventory Manager - Collections
theHoustonMuseumofnaturalscience
5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX 77030-1799
[log in to unmask] (713) 639-4629 ext. 4673
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-----Original Message-----
From: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2018 11:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CONCH-L] Updating Invertebrate Taxonomy in Natural Science Databases
Dear Gary,
I would suggest following WoRMS. It is well curated and kept up to date. Of course names will change, but the new names become readily available. Although I haven't looked very recently and am out of town, I think the genus-level classification of Conidae in WoRMS is also up to date. Currently there are 4-6 genera in Conidae now, but ~80-90% of all the species remain in Conus.
Alan
On Thu, 21 Jun 2018, Gary Kidder wrote:
>
> My apologies for cross posting on here and NHCOLL.
>
>
>
> This question is mostly directed to folks that work with Invertebrate
> collections where frequent taxonomic changes are a part of life. That being said, any other thoughts are appreciated also.
>
>
>
> I am currently in the process of preparing approximately 30,000+
> malacology specimens for cataloging into our Invertebrate Zoology
> Department. Of those 30,000 specimens many species are only
> represented by 1-5 specimens. I mention this to put into context the
> taxonomic conundrum I˘m in. In our database each species has its own
> taxonomic file that includes its phylogenetic hierarchy. For our
> existing collection that phylogenetic hierarchy would probably be considered outdated and our main problem is two-fold. Our first problem is the constant changes that are made at the genus and species level and the time required to constantly and update our records. For example, because of the constant changes in both Conidae and Cypraeidae we only use Conus and Cypraea as accepted genus˘s. Our second problem is determining the reliability of new taxonomy.
>
>
>
> My question is this, as fellow institutions with a responsibility for
> scientific accuracy, what do you use? What debates/pros/cons have you
> had by the way you keep your records? Some of our thoughts have been iDigBio, EOL, WoRMS, and GBIF. That being said, we˘ve seen conflicting information between sites and having the time to check each source in instances like this seems almost impossible.
>
>
>
> In this specific instance, my biggest concern here is inadvertently
> creating duplicate taxonomy records because the new records provided
> will not necessarily match our existing ones. I know the source they
> will be using and have purposely not said what it is so that I can get
> honest opinions about sources. I am also interested in knowing if other institutions have picked a specific standard to go by. Is the source one that can be found online, do you rely on previous work done in your collection, and/or do you rely on older books written on taxonomy?
>
>
>
> Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Please feel free to contact me on or off list.
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
>
>
> Gary L. Kidder
>
> Inventory Manager - Collections
>
> theHoustonMuseumofnaturalscience
> 5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX 77030-1799
>
> [log in to unmask] (713) 639-4629 ext. 4673
>
> Please help reduce carbon footprints by not printing email unless it is necessary...
>
>
>
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