Post by Paul on May 12, 2005 6:07:27 GMT
Hi,
I have finally got hold of the last copy harvard.edu had of the Bequaert snail bible. Unfortunately there are a number of drawbacks.
1. There isn't an identification key, wishful thinking I suppose.
2. There is little comparison between species, instead each species is described individually. Some comparisons are drawn but to detail considerations in reclassifications, rather than to help identification specifically.
3. On first inspection it seems to produce more questions than answers, after reading the Archachatina descriptions I'm more confused about what we all own than I was before.
4. It doesn't cover all the species listed in more recent publications. This leads me to believe considerable re-classification has occurred since, but where and when?
5. Bequaert's research falls short of South Africa, species from there being mentioned, not detailed.
6. It is extremely complicated in terms of language and jargon, some of the references drawn upon are in Latin.
7. Descriptions only go so far, many of the descriptions refer to picture plates from many publications which are no longer published.
8. It relies on the reader having knowledge of various things, minor points are not illustrated at all.
However, the book is still extremely informative but a number of things need to be done to make use of the information.
We need to somehow copy the book and get other willing people to help with deciphering the information. Really, it needs to be scanned to text so we can search the information much more easily. At worst, the pages can be photographed and the relevant ones emailed to whoever needs them. This is treading on dodgy ground but I won't tell if you don't. lol. Besides, seeing as I got the last copy from them, and the British library couldn't be bothered to get back to me, I consider this a service.
We need to make an identification key for all Achatinidae, similar to the key I made for Tiger sub-species you can find here:
www.petsnails.co.uk/species/achatina_achatina_subspecies.jpg
This may not even be possible, it seems species are often identified in part by geographic location, so we don't have that luxury. Also, it may just be that the information required to make a key simply isn't there. However if it is, I intend to find it. To this end, we need to make a list of assertions made by Bequaert for each species. Then, hopefully a logical model can be constructed. This is further complicated by the fact that revisions have since undoubtedly took place.
I have considerable hope in this area. Some species are so distinct as to make their inclusion a formality rather than necessity. Sub-species will undoubtedly be the stumbling block, but a confirmation of primary species is probably enough for most snail species. A list of synonyms and re-classification history needs to be created and normalised for each species. This all seems an overwhelming task but what excites me about it is that all this data, to my knowledge, has never been approached from this angle. I deal with this kind of task everyday, basically everyday information being scoped and modelled into formal rules. Rarely this complicated, but the same considerations can be applied. It all depends on how complete and accurate the information is. But, seeing as the information was compiled in the 1950s it is almost certain that it has never had the benefit of this treatment, which has developed along with computers.
Bequaert refers to the British Natural History Museum's shell collection often. It does seem that this could well be the largest collection in the world. I think one of the best routes to go down is to do one of two things:
1. Try to see and photograph the collection. Colour photos of this are markedly absent. Maybe they have some. We need to find out.
2. Try to get the British Natural History Museum involved. The British Libary supposedly have a copy of every manuscript, paper and book ever published. A lot of these will be outside copyright laws so theoretically, with their consent, we could catalogue the information electronically and publish the photographs. Maybe they can help us in other ways and it is possible that a mollusc expert could jump on board. I mean, they would have a chance to do research in a way that has never been possible before. With their direction we can do measurements, take pictures etc of our snails. They would have access to a large, living collection of snails. Bequaert himself admits that all his identification research is based entirely on the shells; he studied many shell collections with it being somewhat impractical to study a living collection.
paul
I have finally got hold of the last copy harvard.edu had of the Bequaert snail bible. Unfortunately there are a number of drawbacks.
1. There isn't an identification key, wishful thinking I suppose.
2. There is little comparison between species, instead each species is described individually. Some comparisons are drawn but to detail considerations in reclassifications, rather than to help identification specifically.
3. On first inspection it seems to produce more questions than answers, after reading the Archachatina descriptions I'm more confused about what we all own than I was before.
4. It doesn't cover all the species listed in more recent publications. This leads me to believe considerable re-classification has occurred since, but where and when?
5. Bequaert's research falls short of South Africa, species from there being mentioned, not detailed.
6. It is extremely complicated in terms of language and jargon, some of the references drawn upon are in Latin.
7. Descriptions only go so far, many of the descriptions refer to picture plates from many publications which are no longer published.
8. It relies on the reader having knowledge of various things, minor points are not illustrated at all.
However, the book is still extremely informative but a number of things need to be done to make use of the information.
We need to somehow copy the book and get other willing people to help with deciphering the information. Really, it needs to be scanned to text so we can search the information much more easily. At worst, the pages can be photographed and the relevant ones emailed to whoever needs them. This is treading on dodgy ground but I won't tell if you don't. lol. Besides, seeing as I got the last copy from them, and the British library couldn't be bothered to get back to me, I consider this a service.
We need to make an identification key for all Achatinidae, similar to the key I made for Tiger sub-species you can find here:
www.petsnails.co.uk/species/achatina_achatina_subspecies.jpg
This may not even be possible, it seems species are often identified in part by geographic location, so we don't have that luxury. Also, it may just be that the information required to make a key simply isn't there. However if it is, I intend to find it. To this end, we need to make a list of assertions made by Bequaert for each species. Then, hopefully a logical model can be constructed. This is further complicated by the fact that revisions have since undoubtedly took place.
I have considerable hope in this area. Some species are so distinct as to make their inclusion a formality rather than necessity. Sub-species will undoubtedly be the stumbling block, but a confirmation of primary species is probably enough for most snail species. A list of synonyms and re-classification history needs to be created and normalised for each species. This all seems an overwhelming task but what excites me about it is that all this data, to my knowledge, has never been approached from this angle. I deal with this kind of task everyday, basically everyday information being scoped and modelled into formal rules. Rarely this complicated, but the same considerations can be applied. It all depends on how complete and accurate the information is. But, seeing as the information was compiled in the 1950s it is almost certain that it has never had the benefit of this treatment, which has developed along with computers.
Bequaert refers to the British Natural History Museum's shell collection often. It does seem that this could well be the largest collection in the world. I think one of the best routes to go down is to do one of two things:
1. Try to see and photograph the collection. Colour photos of this are markedly absent. Maybe they have some. We need to find out.
2. Try to get the British Natural History Museum involved. The British Libary supposedly have a copy of every manuscript, paper and book ever published. A lot of these will be outside copyright laws so theoretically, with their consent, we could catalogue the information electronically and publish the photographs. Maybe they can help us in other ways and it is possible that a mollusc expert could jump on board. I mean, they would have a chance to do research in a way that has never been possible before. With their direction we can do measurements, take pictures etc of our snails. They would have access to a large, living collection of snails. Bequaert himself admits that all his identification research is based entirely on the shells; he studied many shell collections with it being somewhat impractical to study a living collection.
paul
... but still... persuasion is still a choice 
