Taiwan malacofauna database website

unknown. Setting up a useful taxonomical database is one of the most important jobs for promoting the conservation and research in biodiversity. However, due to the frequent changes in synonymy and local investigations, establishing and maintaining a local taxonomic database are unavailable responsibilities of local taxonomists. The total number of mollusks in the Taiwan area has been reported to comprise 254 families and 3,033 species. This number does not include some unidentified species, especially minishells. The curatorial and basic data of the Taiwan mollusks have been integrated into a single database, which can be accessed interactively on the website http://shell.sinica.edu.tw. The Taiwan Malacofauna Database includes the following contents: 1) The Catalog database. Basic information with photos of each species. One user can make inquiries by shell name, shell shape to get more shell information. 2) The Distributional database. Through the website, users can get the shell distribution in Taiwan area. 3) The Bibliographic database. More than 500 taxonomic, ecological or distributional articles on mollusks in Taiwan have been collected since 1860 including local Chinese articles. 4) The Curatorial database. One can inquire about the approximately 10,000 lots and 2,000 species of mollusks inventory at the Laboratory of Malacology, Institute of Zoology, Academia Sinica. 5) The Chinese shell names of the world shells. The Chinese names of 4,200 common shells in the world are provided for promoting the unification of Chinese molluscan names. 6) The shell n. sp. Database. More than 30 new species been reported from the Taiwan Waters since 1960. 7) The Miscellaneous. Chinese writing character fonts with meaning, and the pronunciation of characters with "shell" radical are furnished. The basic classification system of the phyllum Mollusca and the guestboard are also included in the Taiwan Malacofauna Database Website. This website can link to some shell websites and museums in the world including the Smithsonian Institution. The Natural Science Museum of Japan, and the Field Museum. It is believed that the establishment of a global biodiversity information exchange systems will need local database workers to provide regional database with content so that the goal of information sharing throughout the world can be reached