The Conchological Albums - Volume 1
Terrestrial Molluscs
Acavidae, Achatinellidae, Achatinidae (1)
by Guido T. Poppe, Sheila P. Tagaro, & Philippe Poppe
ISBN 9783948603144, Published by Conchology, Inc., Cebu City, Philippines and ConchBooks, Harxheim, Germany, hardcover about 8 by 11.5 inches, 20 by 29.5 cm, 211 pages including 92 full-page color photographic plates
Volume 1 of "The Conchological Albums" is the first of a proposed series that seeks to illustrate and classify the terrestrial mollusks from the vast number of photographed specimens in the authors' library. It is a huge task and, if completed, will give us a record in photographs of the large number of worldwide terrestrial shells that make up the recent fauna. The first volume presents pictures of the shells in the families Acavidae, Achatinellidae, and the first part of the Achatinidae. The shells are nicely illustrated in color and keyed on the page facing the plates. The keys contain only the name of the shells, their size, and general locality information. When type specimens are shown, the stored location of those specimens is given. There is no description of the shells. The shells are arranged alphabetically within their genus. It is easy enough to track down the shells that you are looking for if you know their family and their genus by using the systematic arrangement in the book. There is no alphabetical index by species which would have been useful if you know the name of a species but are unsure of its' superspecific classification. Apart from that suggestion, what we have here is the beginning of what will be an amazing iconographic record of the worldwide shells when completed.
