Author: Jonathan Robert Hendricks
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877104827
Category : Conidae, Fossil
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Get Book Here
Book Description
Conus (or cone) shells are common in many Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil deposits from the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, but have never been the subjects of a comprehensive taxonomic review or revision. In total, 84 names (including those of some Recent species and fossil taxa from other strata or areas) have been applied to Plio-Pleistocene cone shells from this region, and since Green described Conus marylandicus in 1830, and additional 59 species have been described from these strata. Forty of these taxa were described in the last 17 years and were published outside of the peer-reviewed literature, making their status as distinct species suspect, particularly because most are poorly illustrated, perfunctorily described, and based on few specimens. This makes them nearly impossible to evaluate without direct inspection of type material and/or access to large suites of specimens. Evaluating whether these suspect taxon names represent distinctive morphospecies is critical to attaining an understanding of the evolutionary history and diversity of Neogene and Recent Conus in the western Atlantic. The present work provides a systematic treatment of 82 of the 84 names that have been applied to Conus shells from the Plio-Pleistocene fossil records of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. Here, through application of a conservative morphological species concept (one that accepts large amounts of intraspecific morphological variation), 19 of these nominal taxa are accepted as representing distinctive species of Plio-Pleistocene Conus from this study area. In addition, this investigation also resulted in the discovery of one new fossil morphospecies, described here as Conus burnetti n. sp. An identification key to these 20 species is provided. The status of three additional, previously described species (known only by their type specimens) remains less certain. Two names that are likely familiar to collectors of Plio-Pleistocene Conus from the United States Coastal Plain, C. floridanus Gabb, 1869, and C. druidi Olsson, 1967, are synonymized, respectively, with G. fg. largillierti Kiener, 1845, and C. haytensis G. B. Sowerby II, 1850. All previously described species of sinistral Conus are considered to belong to one highly morphologically variable species, C. adversarius Conrad, 1840.
Author: Jonathan Robert Hendricks
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780877104827
Category : Conidae, Fossil
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Alan J. Kohn
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069113538X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Get Book Here
Book Description
Conus is the largest genus of animals in the sea, occurring throughout the world's tropical and subtropical oceans and contributing significantly to marine biodiversity. The shells of these marine mollusks are prized for their amazing variety and extraordinary beauty. The neurotoxic venoms they produce—injected by a hollow, harpoon-like tooth into prey animals that are then paralyzed and swallowed whole—have a range of pharmaceutical applications, from painkillers to antidepressants. This beautifully illustrated book identifies 53 valid species of the southeastern United States and the Caribbean, a region that supports a diverse but taxonomically challenging group of Conus. Introductory chapters cover the evolution and phylogeny of the genus, and notes on methodology are provided. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, taxonomy, distribution, ecology, toxicology, life history, and evolutionary relationships. The book includes more than 2,100 photos of shells on 109 splendid color plates; more than 100 additional photos, many depicting live animals in color; and 35 color distribution maps. Identifies 53 valid species—the first reassessment of western Atlantic Conus in more than seventy years Features more than 2,100 photos of shells on 109 color plates Blends the traditional shell-character approach to identification with cutting-edge shell and radular tooth morphometrics and molecular genetic analyses Includes color images of live animals as well as color distribution maps
Author: Warren D. Allmon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022637744X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Get Book Here
Book Description
The literature of paleobiology is brimming with qualifiers and cautions about using species in the fossil record, or equating such species with those recognized among living organisms. Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record digs through this literature and surveys the recent research on species in paleobiology. In these pages, experts in the field examine what they think species are - in their particular taxon of specialty or more generally in the fossil record. They also reflect on what the answers mean for thinking about species in macroevolution. The first step in this approach is an overview of the Modern Synthesis, and paleobiology’s development of quantitative ways of documenting and analyzing variation with fossil assemblages. Following that, this volume’s central chapters explore the challenges of recognizing and defining species from fossil specimens, and show how with careful interpretation and a clear species concept, fossil species may be sufficiently robust for meaningful paleobiological analyses. Tempo and mode of speciation over time are also explored, exhibiting how the concept of species, if more refined, can reveal enormous amounts about the interplay between species origins and extinction and local and global climate change.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mollusks
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Quentin D. Wheeler
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1420008560
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Get Book Here
Book Description
Finalist for 2009 The Council on Botanical & Horticultural Libraries Literature Award!A Fresh Look at Taxonomy The most fundamental of all biological sciences, taxonomy underpins any long term strategies for reconstructing the great tree of life or salvaging as much biodiversity as possible. Yet we are still unable to say with any certainty how
Author: Robert Tucker Abbott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Matthew J. James
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1489906460
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Get Book Here
Book Description
Marine Invertebrate Evolution in the Galapagos Islands MATTHEW J. JAMES 1. Perspective of This Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Directions for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Plan of This Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1. Perspective of This Volume Charles Darwin brought the Galapagos Islands to the attention of zoologists, botanists, and geologists following the six-week visit of H. M. S. Beagle to the islands in 1835. Since then published research on the biota of the islands, partic ularly in multiauthored volumes, has focused on terrestrial plants and animals. The present volume is designed specifically to provide a summary of work on the marine invertebrate fauna. One deviation from that objective was the inclusion of a chapter on land snails, which proved to be a good choice because the phylum Mollusca is now covered more thoroughly in this volume than in any single previous scholarly work on the Galapagos. The academic bottom line with this book is to elucidate the evolutionary responses of shallow water, benthic marine invertebrates to the unique set of insular conditions that exist in the Galapagos Islands. The route taken to that objective has many paths including taxonomic revision, determining biogeo graphic affinities, and examining the ecological requirements of species. The information presented here is for some groups from the islands the first stage in a thorough process that can eventually lead to an understanding of the phylogenetic relationships of these species.
Author: Stephen D. Cairns
Publisher: French National Museum Natural History
ISBN: 9782856537671
Category : Benthic animals
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
Tropical Deep-Sea Benthos is a series dedicated to the inventory and description of the deep-sea fauna of the world, with special emphasis on their most extensive--but remote and least-explored--habitats: the Indo-West Pacific. Growing out of marine expeditions undertaken by the French National Museum of Natural History and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, the series continues to present many new, strange, and sometimes colorful invertebrates. The present volume presents results from recent expeditions within the New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, reporting ninety-eight species (including fifty-seven new species) of corals from the Stylasteridae family and one new calcified species of hydrozoa from the family Hydractiniidae. Including numerous seamounts, submarine ridges, and small islands, New Caledonia's deep-sea benthos are ideal habitat for stylasterids, making it the most species-rich marine region in the world for this taxon.
Author: Silvan S. Schweber
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067403452X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Get Book Here
Book Description
Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed—in their worldview, in their work, and in their day—this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times. In Einstein’s and Oppenheimer’s philosophical and ethical positions, their views of nuclear weapons, their ethnic and cultural commitments, their opinions on the unification of physics, even the role of Buddhist detachment in their thinking, the book traces the broader issues that have shaped science and the world. Einstein is invariably seen as a lone and singular genius, while Oppenheimer is generally viewed in a particular scientific, political, and historical context. Silvan Schweber considers the circumstances behind this perception, in Einstein’s coherent and consistent self-image, and its relation to his singular vision of the world, and in Oppenheimer’s contrasting lack of certainty and related non-belief in a unitary, ultimate theory. Of greater importance, perhaps, is the role that timing and chance seem to have played in the two scientists’ contrasting characters and accomplishments—with Einstein’s having the advantage of maturing at a propitious time for theoretical physics, when the Newtonian framework was showing weaknesses. Bringing to light little-examined aspects of these lives, Schweber expands our understanding of two great figures of twentieth-century physics—but also our sense of what such greatness means, in personal, scientific, and cultural terms.
