Resolved Chiton ID (photo added)

I've sent a few your way, and even more hobbyists your way. Sometimes I simply tell them to contact you rather then middle man it FWIW you got a PM regarding one right now (for BAR).

I am not up on my worms and you KILL me in that regard. I always enjoy reading your posts on the various forums you help people on. It's always nice to have a true expert on the case.

 

I gave Leslie a semi-intoduction on one of the other threads, but since she probably won't brag on herself, she's a marine invertebrate expert and worm super-expert at the LACM. I have always passed off my chiton ID's to someone else, since it appears to me there are only about four kinds (big and hairy, big and fleshy, long and rubbery, and smooth with "normal" plates). The taxonomy keeps changing, as I just found out by glancing at the ID's of some of the ones I collected in the Pacific. If you want an ID to the species level on a chiton, Enrico Schwabe is a capable expert, and the guy I always sent my chitons to. He works at the museum in Munich, Zoologische Staatssammlung München, and should be easy to track down if you google for his name.

Cheers,



Don

 

LACM? I've never head it call that.

NHM (Natural History Museum) is what I usually hear it referred to as

 

We swing both ways. ;D

Disclaimer -- I know polychaete worms but I'm not really an invert expert, just an invert fanatic with a lot of ID books & good at chasing info on the web. Also, as nice as the title sounds, I'm not a Dr. I'm the Polychaete Collections Manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County where my primary job is to take care of our preserved worms & help researchers.

 

I guess NHM is good enough if you live in LA or even in California, maybe, lol. The museums all (or at least all the major ones) have official abbreviations. Leslie's outfit is usually abbreviated LACM, but sometimes LACMNH to separate it from LACMA. Here are a couple of examples (the first one quoting Leviton et. al. as the source):

Museum Abbreviations | Amphibian Species of the World
Museum Abbreviations: CONUS BIODIVERSITY WEBSITE CATALOGUE
Seashell-Collector.com

Some may have more than one, at least unofficially, as in ACNATSI and ANSP both being the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology may either be abbreviated MCZ (most common) or MCZH (less common).

OK, enough trivia for the night

Cheers,



Don

 

I should have known Leslie would type faster than me and answer all that LOL