In addition to the scope of the problem, some editorial judgement is
required.  Is Siphocypraea a genus of six species or multiple genera with
dozens of species?  Keeping up with the latest developments is also
challenging.

Such a project also requires deciding what details to include.  Some very
similar shells do belong in different genera, families, or even classes, in
the case of juliid saccoglossan snails and galeommatoidean bivalves or
monoplacophoran and gastropod limpets.  The anatomy is very different, and
details of the shell are often distinctive, but it may require a lot of
detailed work to check your specimens.  Often this work has not been done
in the first place, so that you would have to discover the pattern before
using it to identify other shells.

Such a key or database is a worthwhile goal, but very difficult.

David Campbell

"Old Seashells"

Department of Geological Sciences
CB 3315 Mitchell Hall
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3315
USA

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919-962-0685
FAX 919-966-4519

"He had discovered an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus"-E. A. Poe, The
Gold Bug