FWGNA Information Resources

I. Bibliographies

Bibliography for the Identification of North American Freshwater Snails.  This is Rob Dillon's compilation of guidebooks, keys, monographs, systematic reviews, regional surveys, checklists, and any other published reference material potentially useful for identifying our freshwater gastropod fauna, 1900 - present.  It is available in three forms:

Please feel free to email Rob Dillon (dillonr@cofc.edu) with any additions or corrections you may have for this bibliography.
 

Freshwater Mollusk Bibliography Online.  A searchable database including over 10,000 references on freshwater mollusks worldwide.  This marvelous resource is a collaborative effort by Kevin Cummings (Illinois Natural History Survey), Art Bogan (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences), Tom Watters (the Ohio State University Museum of Biological Diversity) and Chris Mayer (Illinois Natural History Survey).  Funded by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation.


II. On-line Reference Works

Cvancara, A. M.  (1983)  Aquatic mollusks of North Dakota.  North Dakota Geological Survey, Report of Investigation No. 78.  Jamestown, ND: Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center Home Page.   This online version (both downloadable and clickable) of the original 141 page work (covering bivalves as well as gastropods) is brought to you by the good folks at USGS.

Johnson, P. D. (2003)  Sustaining America's Aquatic Biodiversity: Freshwater Snail Biodiversity and Conservation.  A good general introduction to the freshwater gastropods.  Publication Number 420-530 of Virginia Cooperative Extension.

Thompson, F. G. (1984) The Freshwater Snails of Florida, A Manual for Identification.  This clickable key is based on the 94 page original published by the University Presses of Florida.

Wethington, A. R. (2004)  Family Physidae.  A supplement to the workbook accompanying the FMCS Freshwater Identification Workshop, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.  PDF, 532k.

Wu, Oesch & Gordon (1997)  Missouri Mollusks.  Larry Watrous has developed on-line versions (with photos) of several Missouri Dept of Conservation publications.


III. Collections

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia  - This database contains over 500,000 records of specimens in the ANSP Malacology department collections.  And growing!

Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum.  This collection (located on Florida's Sanibel Island) does include some freshwater gastropod holdings.

University of Colorado - An amazing resource!  "GeoMuse is the Mountains and Plains Spatio-Temporal Database Informatics Initiative's GIS mapping application. Powered by open source software as well as ArcIMS software from ESRI, GeoMuse allows users to view collection data in a spatio-temporal format on accurate maps, providing quick and easy access to species distribution and biodiversity data."

Florida Museum of Natural History - Both the (279 record) type collection and the (266,710 record) main collection of the Malacology Department are searchable by standard query.

Illinois Natural History Survey Mollusk Collection - A searchable database including over 104,300 catalogued specimens, most of which were collected in Illinois and the southeastern United States.  About 5% of the collection is freshwater gastropods.

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.  Mollusk Collection.

Ohio State University Museum Mollusc Division.  Click the "Rivers Database" button for a searchable database of over 7,000 drainages used by the Mollusc Division in preparing locality information.

University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.  "We have recently commenced databasing our catalog of nearly 5 million specimens!  Check back often to follow our progress."  About 15% of 250,000 lots catalogued as of 09/06.

US National Museum (Smithsonian Institution).  "We have electronic data on less than 10% of our (invertebrate zoology) collections and images for even fewer. We constantly add new data and correct records."

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Systematic Research Collections of Recent and Fossil Mollusca.  This link takes you to a list of museums compiled by Kevin S. Cummings (Illinois Natural History Survey), Anton Oleinik (Purdue University), and John H. Slapcinsky (Field Museum of Natural History).


IV. Conservation

NatureServe - Hit the "NatureServe Explorer" button and search a very nice database for the distribution of any North American freshwater gastropod by state.  The "heritage rank" is an overall estimate of conservation status.

US Fish & Wildlife Service Threatened and Endangered Species System (TESS).

IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species.

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