Dear Kevin, & the Conch-L group,

I understand your point and I really appreciate all the work you (and others)
have done and are still doing on Bivalve taxonomy. However, I'm not really
concerned about books that keep up with the pace at which new taxa are
described. This would be impossible for any author and/or publisher to do at a
reasonable cost.
My concern is following : Bivalvia which are fairly common in a certain region
do not receive the same attention in shell books as their gastropod 'cousins'
from the same region. In the last three years I have been to Florida, British
Columbia (Canada), Brittany (France), Canary islands, The Philippines and have
brought bivalves from all these regions. However, I do not have any 'regular'
shell books where I can find all of these bivalves to determine. As a librarian
I do have access to scientific literature, but most of the amateur shell
collectors are not aware of these publications and (sorry, but this is the
truth) do not understand the full context of these scientific articles. So, to
get back to my original problem : why is it that (most fairly common) bivalves
do not get the same attention in the popular shell literature as their
gastropod 'brothers and sisters' do get?! Are they too common? Not spectacular
enough. Or, dare I say, not expensive enough....? I'd like some opinions on
this subject from the group, and maybe somebody can prove me wrong by
mentioning some really good bivalve shell books (I already possess the
Lamprell/Whitehead publication on Australia and the recently published bivalve
monograph on the Pacific coast of America by Coan, Scott & Bernard).

And I'm really pleased, Kevin, to read that you have apparently revised your
Spondylus publication. I do hope this will be published real soon as a new
valuable monograph!!!!

Thanks and best greetings,

Jan haspeslagh

Kev Lamprell wrote:

> Hi Jan
>
> One of the problems with producing new books on the bivalvia is that we keep
> on finding species that have not been described previously. I presently have
> about 12 bivalve species to describe and recently have described several
> more in various papers, however it is not possible to create a new book
> everytime someone describes new taxa. I would suggest you have your library
> contact authors who you know to be interested to find out where they have
> publised their papers and obtain reprints or original publications for your
> library. I have sent the text for a revised edition of the Spondylus book to
> the publishers for editing, this includes several new species (described in
> appropriate papers) and numerous taxonomic changes.
>
> Best wishes
> Kevin Lamprell
>
> Dr. K. Lamprell
> 58 Marsden Road
> Kallangur Qld 4503
> Australia
> Ph: 07 32854307
> Int: 61 7 32854307
> Email: [log in to unmask]