Higo S, Callomon P and Goto Y 1999

Catalogue and bibliography of the marine shell-bearing Mollusca of Japan

Elle Scientific Publications, Japan, 749 pp. ISBN 4-901172-01-8

This is a new and extremely valuable reference source for the Japanese marine molluscan fauna.

For each mollusc species that has been recorded from Japan or immediately adjacent sea areas there is an entry that includes: the name, author and date, the most recent generic assignment classification, known synonyms, Japanese name, type locality and distributional data (that within Japan referenced according to grid squares), known habitat, and concluding with the generic name under which the species was originally described. There is a huge bibliography occupying 97 pages (171 entries for Habe and co-authors alone).

The catalogue is a huge volume and represents an extraordinary labour of scholarship, listing 5022 gastropods, 1472 bivalves, 59 scaphopods and 130 chitons. This is not a book for species identification but it represents an essential reference and bibliographic source for anyone interested in the Japanese or Pacific marine molluscan fauna. The daunting effort of tracking down those obscure names has now disappeared. It has already become an indispensable aid for taxonomic research at the Natural History Museum, London.

JohnTaylor