Richard E. Petit

The Publications and Malacological Taxa of William Wood (1774–1857)

ABSTRACT William Wood (1774–1857), trained as a physician, soon turned his attention to natural history book publication and sales. Working in London, his chief malacological publications were the General conchology (1814–1815; reprinted in 1835), two editions of the Index testaceologicus (1818, 1823–1825; the latter reprinted in 1828), and a Supplement (1828) to the Index containing many new species. He made available 282 specific names, of which 109 are now considered valid. Type lots of many of his species are present in The Natural History Museum, London, some newly located during the present study.

The Molluscan Taxa Made Available In the Griffith & Pidgeon (1833–1834) Edition Of Cuvier, With Notes On the Editions Of Cuvier and On Wood's Index testaceologicus

This paper reviews the new taxa made available by Gray in the Griffith & Pidgeon (1833–1834) English translation of Cuviers famous Le règne animal 1830, as well as the taxa attributed, correctly or incorrectly, to Gray in this work. We discuss various complications concerning the dating and authorship of these taxa, and some new information is provided about their type material. Six generic names date from this work, five of them now considered valid. Sixty-five species names were made available, of which 44 are now considered valid, although some of these have not been recognized in recent literature, and one is a nomen dubium; 21 are placed in synonymy because they are junior synonyms, preoccupied homonyms, or unused senior synonyms that have been or should be suppressed.

Thylacodes — Thylacodus — Tulaxodus: Worm-Snail Name Confusion and the Status of Serpulorbis (Gastropoda: Vermetidae)

in the worm-snail family Vermetidae, a large group of species (of still doubtful monophyly) is characterized by the absence of an operculum, the horny structure enabling other vermetids to fully or partially close the opening of the attached shell tube. such species were traditionally described and grouped in the nominal genera serpulorbis, lementina, or Thylacodes (or variant forms of these names). disputed authorships, numerous subsequent emendations, and conflicting type designations created a very complex situation, made worse by the introduction of similar sounding names such as Thylacodus and Thylaeodus for related, but not synonymous, taxa. with increasing involvement and mention of these vermetids in a wide range of biological studies, ranging from recent and fossil diversity assessments to gene order research (e.g., rawlings et al., 2001), taxonomic cleanup is urgently needed and the following note attempts to disentangle the confused situation.

Literature Citations: Authors of Taxa with Date of Publication Should be Mandatory

In Malacologia 55(1), there is an article by Arrighetti et al. (2012) on the growth of Olivancillaria deshayesiana1. The author of that taxon, and the date of its publication, appear nowhere within the article. Investigation reveals that the author is Ducros de Saint Germain, who described the species in 1857 in the genus Oliva. This author’s work is not in the Literature Cited. If the authors did not consult Ducros, they should at least have given an indication of the origin of the name. Two of the coauthors published a paper in 2011 in which this species was properly attributed to Ducros, so it is not for lack of knowledge that this information was omitted. Readers of this, or any, paper should not have to do a literature search to determine the author and date of a taxon if they wish to determine exactly what species is being treated. To their credit, the authors did include a photograph of the species they treated. Other binomina appear throughout the paper, none of which have author and date appended. It is my opinion that not only should such data be mandatory but that there should be accompanying citations to the original sources. If a work cannot be consulted, which is not a