Skip Navigation Links
View access keys for this site.

CATALOGUE SEARCH HELP

General Suggestions

Enter only one search term in each field. For example, to find all species described by Linnaeus and Sowerby (i), you will have to run two searches.

Enter a "%" (percent sign without quotations) for a wildcard in any textbox. This will match zero or more characters in the search string. The wildcard can be used in any combination and can be placed before, within, or after a string. (Examples: Entering Sowerby% in the authors field finds Sowerby, J. de C., Sowerby, J., Sowerby (i), G. B. Sr., Sowerby (ii), G. B. Jr., and Sowerby (iii), G. B. III. Entering Sp%ker in the authors field finds Spieker and Spiker).

You are not required to fill in all the fields, only put in enough information to narrow the returned records to those that interest you. AND is used between search criteria, not OR, so filling in too many fields may inadvertently exclude records (example: Entering "Linnaeus" in the Author field and choosing "Indo-Pacific (IP)" for region would find all records where Author is 'Linnaeus' AND Region is 'IP').

See the individual descriptions of the Search Fields (below) for definitions and how to best use them when searching the database.

Search Fields

  1. Genus: This field searches on a genus-group name where the original author assigned the species to a genus-group other than Conus. It should only be used when looking for all the species in a genus-group other than Conus.
  2. Species: This field searches on the species-group name (example: Leaving the Genus field blank and entering stercusmuscarum in this field would return Conus stercusmuscarum Linnaeus, 1758).
  3. Species Author: This field searches on the author that described the species. This will often return the same results as searching within the 'Citation Author' field. It returns different results when the author described a species in another author's work. An example would be Conus figulinus chytreus Melvill, 1884, which was described in Tryon's 1884 Manual of Conchology. A search for Melvill in the 'Citation Author' field will not return the chytreus species-group name, but the same search using Tryon will. However, using Melvill in the 'Species Author' field will return chytreus. This field is also more susceptible to data entry errors because the data has been entered once for every species-group name (many) as opposed to once for every citation (few).
  4. Citation Author: This field searches on the author of an original description. Author names may include apostrophes or diacritic marks, and the search engine will only find exact matches of these characters. If you are not finding an author you expect to find, try inserting diacritics or wildcards into that author's name. Alternatively, browse the list of authors and click the link on the author's name to go directly to search results for that author.
  5. Year: This field searches on the year of publication.
  6. Citation: This field searches on the citation of an original description. It is suggested that you enter as little of the citation as possible and use the wildcard character (%) on either one or both sides of your entry (example: American Journal of Conchology% returns only records from this journal).
  7. Region: This field searches on the region in which the species occur (EA = Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, EP = Eastern Pacific; IP = Indo-Pacific; SA = South Africa; WA = Western Atlantic and Caribbean).
  8. Species Accounts: This checkbox limits the search to only those records that have a written account of the species.
  9. Paleo Records: This checkbox limits the search to only those records that have literature records of fossils.
  10. Images: This checkbox limits the search to only those records that have images.
  11. Genetic sequences: This checkbox limits the search to only those records that have genetic sequences.
  12. Original Description: This checkbox limits the search to only those records that have an original description in PDF format.

Returned Results

After you have decided on a search criteria and sent your request to the database, you will receive a list of returned results. From here, you have many options to work with the data returned. You can change how many of the returned results are viewed per page (10, 50, or 100) via a dropdown list at the top of the page. The sorting of the records can be changed by clicking on the column headings. The entire result set can be downloaded by clicking the download link on the results page. Lastly, a more detailed record-view for a particular species-group name can be viewed by clicking its link in the result list.

Downloading Search Results: There are three options for downloading the results of your search: as either an Excel file, a Word file, or a Text file. The file versions available for download contain the same information as all the results returned from your search, but each is configured for a different program and use. The Ms-Word version is in a more “printer-friendly” format. It is designed to be printed landscape on 8.5x11-inch paper. The Ms-Excel version has the same structure as the database and opens directly in Ms-Excel. The tab-delimited text version is in the same format as the Ms-Excel version, but is for users who do not use Ms-Excel and would like to import the data into another spreadsheet program.

Viewing records: Once you choose an individual record to view (by clicking on a link in the result list), the data is loaded into a box with a tabbed style navigation system that breaks the data into sections (Taxonomy, Description, Images, Citation, and Author(s)). There is a frames and no-frames version of this record viewer. The frames version allows you to click between tabs without the new page jumping to the top and requiring you to scroll back down. It is suggested that you use the frames version unless your browser doesn't support frames or you need to change the way the page is styled or viewed.