Dear colleagues and friends
    It is my pleasure to invite you for my doctoral dissertation
defense. It will be held in the Biosciences Institute, University of São
Paulo, Brazil, 14:00 hours of December 6, 2000. The title of
dissertation is “Phylogeny of the Caenogastropoda superfamilies
(Mollusca, Gastropoda), based on comparative morphology”.
    The study was carried out at Zoology Museum, under the advice of
Prof. Dr. José Luiz M. Leme.
    I have studied detailed morphology of more than 250 species,
comprising practically all caenogastropod families, as well as several
outgroups. Based on this morphological I established the phylogenies of
each superfamily and have found their ground plans (most of these
studies have already been submitted for publication).
    The final phylogeny of the Caenogastropoda as a whole, was inferred
with the superfamilies as terminal taxa, represented by their ground
plans. A single tree was reached with an interesting arrangement of the
superfamilies, with the ingroup supported by 39 morphological
synapomorphies.
    Please contact me for any further explaining.
    Best wishes,
    Luiz


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Luiz Ricardo L. Simone
Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo
Cx. Postal 42694
04299-970 São Paulo, SP, Brazil
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