News
Adding initials to authors’ names.
Added on 2025-04-06 17:45:06 by Vos, Chris
Distinguishing authors at a glance can help speeding up research and can even point the researcher in a direction for type material research. One cannot simply say “This shell was described by Sowerby” … or “by Adams”, or” by Smith”, or …
There are many examples of surnames of authors which occur multiple times in history and refer to different people with different interests and specializations, operating in different social contexts.
Did you know James De Carle Sowerby followed in his fathers’ footsteps focussing on palaeontology, unlike his brother George Brettingham Sowerby (first of the name), who had more affinity with extant molluscs – unlike their brother Charles Edward Sowerby, who was a botanist. So, when looking at a species name of a fossil shell described by “Sowerby”, it was most probably described by James De Carle – possibly in the works of Grant, Murchison, Fitton or Darwin, or in the later volumes of his father’s “Mineral Conchology”. Knowing which Sowerby described the species makes it easier to figure out where type material could be found.
Furthermore, it sometimes helps to know a little background of an author’s life and social context to understand his/her perception of “a species” and how and why they proceeded with descriptions the way they did. The late Richard Petit wrote many papers on “taxa described by …” – sometimes together with other authors, but not every author is as well documented as that.
But how do you get started when you want to find out more about an author? Well … allow us to provide you with a few easily accessible sources.
2400 years of Malacology (https://ams.wildapricot.org/2400-Years-of-Malacology).
This huge work by Eugene V. Coan and Alan R. Kabat is freely available from the website of the American Malacological Society and contains thousands of names of people related to shells throughout history and includes references to works regarding these people. The PDF can be downloaded for free and is easy to search. Advantage is that it is rather elaborate and contains references so one can continue researching. Disadvantage could be that the mentioned references are not all easily available online.
Shellers of past and present (https://www.conchology.be/?t=9000)
Searchable by first name or last name, this online database of authors was created by Conchology, Inc and is also free to consult. The extensive work in the background is today mainly done by Frank Maartense (The Netherlands) – continuing the work of the late Tom Rice - with the help of modern day shellers of all sorts who can add their own biography and/or other data. Ultimately, it will be very similar to 2400 years of Malacology, yet easier to consult without having to search for mentioned references as the data is already there.
Gallery of famous malacologists (https://www.facebook.com/groups/784313937238895cebook)
This facebook-page was created by – and is maintained by – Riccardo Gianuzzi-Savelli (Italy), who through his professional experience has acquired a vast amount of knowledge on authors and their lives. The posts nearly always contain a photograph of some sort so we can put a face to the name. The photographs are usually accompanied by a rather extensive biography of the authors.
MolluscaBase (https://molluscabase.org/)
The section “Literature” of MolluscaBase can be incredibly useful to find publications of specific authors – especially those with common surnames. You’ll easily notice that one surname can refer to many authors, yet you’ll typically find the full reference – often with a link or a PDF attached. This section is continuously updated by our editors and most notably by our bibliographic editor.
And no, we’re not finished yet … the database already includes many tens of thousands of bibliographic sources, yet many are still out there waiting to be entered.
A long story short:
Whilst the ICZN Code does not explicitly regulate how the name of an author should be written after a taxon (apart from the use of parentheses), we see it as an extra service to our users to indicate “at first glance” which author described a taxon by adding initials for authors with eponymous family names, so that anyone performing research on a taxon immediately has a clear image of who described the taxon, and – by deduction – how this person operated, and where one may look for type material.
And let’s be honest … “Described by J. De C. Sowerby” sounds much more accurate than “Described by Sowerby”.
On behalf of the MolluscaBase editor community,
Chris Vos, F. L. S.
[Photograph: Ernest Ruthven Sykes (1867 – 1954) after Gallery of Famous Malacologists, courtesy of Riccardo Gianuzzi-Savelli]
There are many examples of surnames of authors which occur multiple times in history and refer to different people with different interests and specializations, operating in different social contexts.
Did you know James De Carle Sowerby followed in his fathers’ footsteps focussing on palaeontology, unlike his brother George Brettingham Sowerby (first of the name), who had more affinity with extant molluscs – unlike their brother Charles Edward Sowerby, who was a botanist. So, when looking at a species name of a fossil shell described by “Sowerby”, it was most probably described by James De Carle – possibly in the works of Grant, Murchison, Fitton or Darwin, or in the later volumes of his father’s “Mineral Conchology”. Knowing which Sowerby described the species makes it easier to figure out where type material could be found.
Furthermore, it sometimes helps to know a little background of an author’s life and social context to understand his/her perception of “a species” and how and why they proceeded with descriptions the way they did. The late Richard Petit wrote many papers on “taxa described by …” – sometimes together with other authors, but not every author is as well documented as that.
But how do you get started when you want to find out more about an author? Well … allow us to provide you with a few easily accessible sources.
2400 years of Malacology (https://ams.wildapricot.org/2400-Years-of-Malacology).
This huge work by Eugene V. Coan and Alan R. Kabat is freely available from the website of the American Malacological Society and contains thousands of names of people related to shells throughout history and includes references to works regarding these people. The PDF can be downloaded for free and is easy to search. Advantage is that it is rather elaborate and contains references so one can continue researching. Disadvantage could be that the mentioned references are not all easily available online.
Shellers of past and present (https://www.conchology.be/?t=9000)
Searchable by first name or last name, this online database of authors was created by Conchology, Inc and is also free to consult. The extensive work in the background is today mainly done by Frank Maartense (The Netherlands) – continuing the work of the late Tom Rice - with the help of modern day shellers of all sorts who can add their own biography and/or other data. Ultimately, it will be very similar to 2400 years of Malacology, yet easier to consult without having to search for mentioned references as the data is already there.
Gallery of famous malacologists (https://www.facebook.com/groups/784313937238895cebook)
This facebook-page was created by – and is maintained by – Riccardo Gianuzzi-Savelli (Italy), who through his professional experience has acquired a vast amount of knowledge on authors and their lives. The posts nearly always contain a photograph of some sort so we can put a face to the name. The photographs are usually accompanied by a rather extensive biography of the authors.
MolluscaBase (https://molluscabase.org/)
The section “Literature” of MolluscaBase can be incredibly useful to find publications of specific authors – especially those with common surnames. You’ll easily notice that one surname can refer to many authors, yet you’ll typically find the full reference – often with a link or a PDF attached. This section is continuously updated by our editors and most notably by our bibliographic editor.
And no, we’re not finished yet … the database already includes many tens of thousands of bibliographic sources, yet many are still out there waiting to be entered.
A long story short:
Whilst the ICZN Code does not explicitly regulate how the name of an author should be written after a taxon (apart from the use of parentheses), we see it as an extra service to our users to indicate “at first glance” which author described a taxon by adding initials for authors with eponymous family names, so that anyone performing research on a taxon immediately has a clear image of who described the taxon, and – by deduction – how this person operated, and where one may look for type material.
And let’s be honest … “Described by J. De C. Sowerby” sounds much more accurate than “Described by Sowerby”.
On behalf of the MolluscaBase editor community,
Chris Vos, F. L. S.
[Photograph: Ernest Ruthven Sykes (1867 – 1954) after Gallery of Famous Malacologists, courtesy of Riccardo Gianuzzi-Savelli]
[Overview] [Login]
