Australia
Photo of the day (83): Bothriembryon
15-01-2010 21:58
On this website I found a picture of
Bothriembryon
tasmanicus (Pfeiffer, 1853). I don’t know
if it is a common species on Tasmania, but anyway,
pictures of living snails are always a good find.
It is said to belong to a different
subgenus, Tasmanembryon,
but it would be interesting to see if the molecular
data corroborate that view. Anyone around there to
collect some specimens?
Orthalicid radulae (1): Bothriembryon
17-11-2009 19:27
This is strictly not
about Neotropical snails. But still about
orthalicids. And as the relationships between the
different group within the (super)family is one of my
research topics, I think it is still "on topic" for
this blog.
Sometimes you have data that you considered lost. I thought that all data used for my papers in the 70s and 80s had gone. This weekend I cleaned up a bit in my house and found a tray with several hundreds of SEM photographs of radulae, arranged according to different species.
Since only a small part has actually been published in the past (viz. my Zoologische Verhandelingen 164 [1978] and 168 [1979]), I think it is worthwile to grab from time to time some from this tray and put them up here.
It is astonishing to see that the quality of those old machines and analog photographs still is very comparable to those from modern equipment and which are digitally processed. The biggest difference is that modern machines are easily operated (I recently did myself, but that is something for a future post) and results can be swiftly processed.
The 'grab of the day' is Bothriembryon gunnii (Sowerby, 1845). This is an orthalicid occurring in Tasmania. The specimen shown here is from Coles Bay and kept in the Leiden museum (ZV 164: 209).
Upper figures: interaction between the teeth. Lower left: central; lower right: lateral 7-9.
Update: Now I realize that B. gunni is the name of the fossil species that occurs on Tasmania. The Recent species should be called B. tasmanicus (Pfeiffer, 1853).
Sometimes you have data that you considered lost. I thought that all data used for my papers in the 70s and 80s had gone. This weekend I cleaned up a bit in my house and found a tray with several hundreds of SEM photographs of radulae, arranged according to different species.
Since only a small part has actually been published in the past (viz. my Zoologische Verhandelingen 164 [1978] and 168 [1979]), I think it is worthwile to grab from time to time some from this tray and put them up here.
It is astonishing to see that the quality of those old machines and analog photographs still is very comparable to those from modern equipment and which are digitally processed. The biggest difference is that modern machines are easily operated (I recently did myself, but that is something for a future post) and results can be swiftly processed.
The 'grab of the day' is Bothriembryon gunnii (Sowerby, 1845). This is an orthalicid occurring in Tasmania. The specimen shown here is from Coles Bay and kept in the Leiden museum (ZV 164: 209).
Upper figures: interaction between the teeth. Lower left: central; lower right: lateral 7-9.
Update: Now I realize that B. gunni is the name of the fossil species that occurs on Tasmania. The Recent species should be called B. tasmanicus (Pfeiffer, 1853).