Home

Nomenclature

The nomenclature of the British bivalves was rather stable throughout most of the twentieth century largely due to the rather isolated approach used, which ignored the fact that the British region is part of the larger North-east Atlantic marine province. The nomenclature used during this time (including that found in Tebble) came primarily from Winckworth’s 1932 paper¹; “The British Marine Mollusca”. This was partially updated in two papers² by Bowden and Heppell in 1966 and 1968, both on bivalves but not comprehensive. Major changes appeared in the last decade of the 20th century, firstly with the publication in 1991 of Smith & Heppell’s “Checklist of British Mollusca”³, which, in 1997, was largely incoporated into the “Species Directory of the Marine Fauna and Flora of the British Isles and Surrounding Seas”⁴ edited by Howson & Picton. A contemporary, but web-based, development was the “Checklist of European and Mediterranean Marine Mollusca” CLEMAM, which first went online in 1995 and forms the basis for the EC funded European Register of Marine Species ERMS http://www.marbef.org/data/erms.php that went online in 1997. The CLEMAM site http://www.somali.asso.fr/clemam contains full synonymy and references and is our preferred source of nomenclatural reference. Both web-based checklists are updated and now differ from Smith & Heppell and the “Species Directory”.

Here we mostly follow CLEMAM but with some reservations.

Where nomenclatural changes follow peer-reviewed taxonomic revisions, we have accepted these. Where the use of subgenera and genera has been subjective and where the synonymy of species has not been supported by published research we may take a more conservative approach. Where we do deviate from CLEMAM we will support this by taxonomic research or when taking a conservative position and explain this in the notes section.

In order to give some continuity we also give the names in both Smith & Heppell and Tebble. We do not give the full synonymy listings for each species as these can be found on the CLEMAM website.

Nomenclature Variances with CLEMAM

The following taxa are not included in CLEMAM but are recorded by us from the study area
Ennucula granulosa (deep water)
Bathyspinula filatovae (deep water)
Malletia johnsoni (deep water)
Ledella ultima (deep water)
Tiostrea chilensis (introduced)
Bankia gouldi (pelagic vagrants)
Uperotus lieberkindi (pelagic vagrants)
Cetoconcha nitida (deep water)
Pristigloma alba (deep water)
Halicardia flexuosa (deep water)
Myonera demistriata (deep water)

The following taxa are included in Smith & Heppell but are not in CLEMAM
Macoma loveni
Macoma torelli
Macoma moesta

The following are newly described species not yet in CLEMAM
Similipecten oskarssoni

Opinions

• Arcopella balaustina = Arcopagia balaustina (CLEMAM)
  Tellina balaustina is the type species of Arcopella, the discrepant pallial sinus is sufficient to warrant separation from Arcopagia.


• Subgeneric names retained for Thyasiridae
  Leptaxinus incrassatus = Thyasira incrassata (CLEMAM)
  The generic and subgeneric divisions of the Thyasiridae are more distinct than suggested by CLEMAM. However, we recognise that many species remain problematic when assigning them to subgenera.


• Tapes used in place of Venerupis and Ruditapes
  The phylogenetic tree presented by Kappner & Bieler (2006) gives very little support to the recognition of these genera.
  Tapes corrugata = Venerupis senegalensis (CLEMAM) see notes in database for detailed explanation.


• Halonympha inflata = Cuspidaria inflata (CLEMAM)
  The presence of a posterior-dorsal flange places this species in the genus Halonympha.


• Thyasira polygona = Thyasira biplicata (CLEMAM)
  The synonymy of these names is probably correct. But the apparent amphi-Atlantic distribution of this ‘species’ requires further consideration.


• Verticordia triangularis = Verticordia sinuosa (CLEMAM)
  We have been unable to find published verification of the above synonymy. Specimens illustrated here are identical to Verticordia triangularis, whereas V. sinuosa is based on fragments.


• Solecurtus multistriatus = Solecurtus scopula Turton
  


• Solecurtus scopula of authors = S. candidus Brocchi.
  See paper Oliver, Nolff and Verstraeten 2010, Journal of Conchology.


• Pododesmus striata = Pododesmus squama (CLEMAM)
  The number of species within Pododesmus is an ongoing project. From muscle scar morphology we would agree with Smith & Heppell that P. squama = P. patelliformis. We recognise P. striata from external shell and anatomical characters, but as yet cannot confirm that this is simply a morph of P. squama as suggested by CLEMAM.


• Nuculanidae in place of Yoldiidae
  Killeen & Turner (2009) use Nuculanidae instead of Yoldiidae in agreement with Ockelmann & Warén (1998) who explain that the distinguishing characters between these two families has never been well documented. Until the Yoldiidae can be clearly distinguished from the Nuculanidae we shall
  treat them under the single family Nuculanidae.