I must disagree with Dr. Leal. How many people have ever heard of the
mollusc Meiomenia swedmarki Morse, 1979? Yet someone decided it needed a
common name - Pacific psammonworm. Or Heteroschismoides callithrix (Dall,
1889) as the nineside toothshell? Or Anisodoris lentiginosa Millen, 1982,
now officially called  (gasp) the mottled pale sea-lemon. These are not
even Abbott common names, they (as near as I can tell) are unique to this
publication. To make matters worse, the Common Names book often ignores
Abbott common names. As people have stated in this forum, Abbott first
applied common names as far back as American Seashells. Why didn't the
Common Names book simply use these, since any shell collector in North
America undoubtedly uses this classic work. For instance, Abbott calls the
common Modulus modulus (Linne, 1758) the Atlantic modulus, but the Common
Names book gives it yet a new common name - the buttonshell. Cerithium
atratum - Florida cerith vs. dark cerith. Cerithium lutosum - dwarf cerith
vs. variable cerith, etc.





>In addition, there is no intent on the part of the authors to invent
>common names that did not exist before their work.
>
>Cheers,
>
>José
>
>José H. Leal, Ph.D., Director
>The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
>Editor, The Nautilus
>www.shellmuseum.org
>
>3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
>Sanibel, FL 33957 USA
>(239)395-2233
>fax (239)395-6706

G. Thomas Watters, PhD
Curator of Molluscs
Museum of Biological Diversity
Department of Evolution, Ecology & Organismal Biology
The Ohio State University
1315 Kinnear Road
Columbus, OH 43212 USA
v: 614-292-6170
f: 614-292-7774

Visit the Molluscs Division at:
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~molluscs/OSUM2