On the official status of varieties, names proposed as "varieties",
"forms", etc. before 1961 are considered to be subspecies names,
unless the author made it clear that they were thought to be less than
subspecies, and no one treated it as a subspecies or species before
1985.

Any newly proposed varietal names may be handy ways to designate
particular forms but have no official status.

Re-examination of "cryptic" species often turns up differences, and
geography often helps as well, so they may become less cryptic with
more work.  There's also the possibility that anatomy rather than
shell form is the best distinguishing feature, inconvenient for
dealing with an existing shell-only collection but useful as one
collects.

Given the complexities of evolution as a real process, subspecies and
similar categories can be useful in many cases, though there are
certainly many that are mere varieties or good species.

--
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"

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