| Using this site
Access each group with the icons below the banner above. Groups
are further divided by family, phylum, or logical unit. Each unit
page lists species by geographic region starting with Hawaii as
default. Each region's most common species are shown first along
with similar ones for comparison. Individual species pages may be
accessed by clicking the image below its scientific name (yellow
italic).
Common & Scientific Names
Common names are
important but of limited usefulness as they can be created, modified,
and changed by anyone. It is not unusual for a common name to be
used for entirely different species in different parts of the world or
for a single species to have a multitude of common names. Effort has been made to choose a
US English common name (bold white) prevalent in Hawaii or the host
country along with a local name if appropriate. In the case where
no such common name exists, I have taken the liberty of creating one
based on descriptive characteristics or a translation of the scientific
name. In order
to reduce confusion it is necessary to refer to each species using its scientific name.
The scientific name is generally accepted worldwide by
professionals of any nation. In general the accepted scientific
name is the oldest known recorded description of a given species found
in scientific literature. Many of the names are based on Latin or
Greek.
It is important to
note that ongoing research often results in changes to currently
'accepted' scientific names. Examples include the discovery of an
older description, the reassignment of one species as a variety of
another (lumping, with the stricken name becoming a synonym), splitting
of a single species into two or more distinct species (splitting), or
the promotion or demotion of a genus or subgenus. Name changes can
lead to confusion as print references age and name changes take
place. Certain researchers have a propensity to split or lump
species to excess only making the situation worse. This situation
is particularly bad among seashells and herein I have chosen to keep
things simple by refraining from promoting subgenera to full generic
status.
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