Early taxonomic history of Notocypraea Schilder，1927

摘要

When I first became interested in shell collecting and particularly Notocypraea in 1968，other than shell dealer lists, the main reference was Joyce Allan's 1956 Cowries of World Seas, where the taxonomy of Notocypraea was based solely on the papers and interpretations of Cotton and Iredale. Subsequent forays by Trenberth (1961) and Schilder (1962) further complicated an already confusing situation, where dealers and collectors named their shells based largely on opinion rather than on a sound taxonomic basis. By 1870 all of the five now generally accepted valid species of Notocypraea (N. angustata, N. piperita, N. comptonii, N. pulicaria and N. declivis) had been named. A sixth, N. bicolor, is now accepted as a variety or synonym of N. piperita. Apart from a few exceptions, taxonomic treatment is today relatively stable, but the history of the confusion that existed for over half a century makes an interesting story