Abstract
Among the classes of invertebrate animals, the Bivalvia, with its extremely long fossil record and its preserved characters, which permit inferential anatomical reconstruction, comprises a group especially fit for phyletic analysis. Ideal for the investigation of the dynamics of speciation and the evolution of higher categories, bivalves represent a taxonomic unit whose systematics suffer from certain weaknesses. The relative narrowness of the anagenetic distances between lineages and the all-too-human tendency both to proliferate nomina and to elevate taxa partially obfuscate reality. The taxonomy of the Bivalvia is threatened by a cloying nomenclature both at specific and higher categorical levels. Reappraisal of various, recently proposed, systematic arrangements and judicious application of Occam’s Razor may allay the malaise of superfluity and promise the elaboration of a phyletically meaningful but somewhat simplified, utilitarian classification.
Subject
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering,General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Business, Management and Accounting,Materials Science (miscellaneous),Business and International Management
Cited by
21 articles.
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