David,
  Quite a few Pliocene taxa have traversed into the Recent epoch.  Just
because one taxon is in the Pliocene and a "related" one is in the Recent
does not in and of itself make it a new species as opposed to one with
that traverses several epochs.  It would be interesting to see by what
criteria the two are felt to be different and then for researchers in the
Pectinidae to see if they agree that these differences are sufficent to
separate the two out as different taxa as opposed to considering them one
and the same.
  This is not unlike one researcher who has named many cones, cypraea,
etc. from Florida based on, sometimes, small morphological differences.
That some of these taxa are truly different I have no doubt, that many
will fall into synonomy, I also have no doubt.  However, the problem of
the plethora of names will remain until rigorous revisionary studies are
done based on good morphological and stratigraphic studies.
  Just my humble opinion.  See you at the AMS meeting in July.
 
Charlie
******************************************************************************
Charlie Sturm, Jr
Research Associate - Section of Invertebrate Zoology
                     Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA
Assistant Professor - Family Medicine
 
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On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, David Campbell wrote:
 
> >Hi David,
> >As per your message below, I am simply going by what is in the Rombouts
> >Pecten book which describes Euvola raveneli (Dall, 1898) on page 39. If it
> >is just in the process of being described, what is it doing in the book? I
> >admit that I am not very sophisticated when it comes to the formal science,
> >so I just go on the best information I have. Maybe you can elaborate on
> >what the difference is between the species in the book and the species in
> >the process of getting described. I find this enormously confusing (but
> >then I find a lot of things rather confusing).
>
> The Recent species called Euvola raveneli in many references has not been
> formally described and given a scientific name, because everyone thought it
> was raveneli.  The Recent species has been known about for years, and the
> descriptions in Rombouts, Abbott, etc. under the name "raveneli" refer to
> the modern species.  However, Dall based the name on the fossil, and so the
> living one needs a formal description.  I believe Tom Waller is working on
> it.
>
> 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
>
> 919-962-0685
> FAX 919-966-4519
>
> "He had discovered an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus"-E. A. Poe, The
> Gold Bug
>