Talk:Cypraeidae

As my edits regarding several genera that link other articles (eg. Trona links to the mineral species) could someone else please preform this? Kevmin 03:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Vulnerabilities of the cowry shell

From years of first-hand experience with the cowries and their predators, I have included a few of the predators of these shells. Keep in mind that fish gulp them down (up,... whatever!) whole and digest them, shell and all. Also, the rays (sting- and eagle) can crush their shells and eat the flesh.

Makuabob (talk) 23:53, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Crabs and cowries

Crabs use their claws to grasp and crush. Some claws have very sharp edges which may cause material to break and separate in the act of being crushed, but no slicing action occurs. It would be necessary to give a reference for the claim that a crab can "cut" the top off of a cowry shell.
Makuabob (talk) 12:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I know where I can find that info... let me look. Invertzoo (talk) 00:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

What do they eat?

What do cypraeidae eat?--Alchemist Jack (talk) 15:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Intermediary Taxa

Caenogastropoda, Hypsogastropoda, and Littorinimorpha should be given respectively ranks of superorder, order, and suborder. The fact that Bouchet and Rocroi (2005) chose to see them as clades, for what may have been good reason, doesn't negate their being seen as taxa with designated rank. After all they are taxoboxes, not cladoboxes.

However is someone is too hesitant to take such a bold step, I suggest doing away with the term (unranked) --clades explicitly have no rank-- and put the term (clade) parenthetically in the left had column. At least it would retain the symmetry. J.H.McDonnell (talk) 02:12, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Per first section see: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gastropods/Archive_3#2005_taxonomy, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Gastropods/Taxonomy, Template:WikiProject Gastropods. Per second section: there are usually used two "ranks": clades and informal groups, so your proposal is not possible. Any other change is not possible without radical change in all affected articles (20.000 articles). --85.132.151.253 (talk) 20:57, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

We are following Bouchet & Rocroi 2005. We are not free to create our own version of their taxonomy, that is "original research". In any case, yes... it is true that Caenogastropoda, Hypsogastropoda, and Littorinimorpha do actually fit neatly into the taxa ranks "superorder, order, and suborder", but... the sequence Heterobranchia, Opisthobranchia, Nudipleura, Dexiarchia, Cladobranchia, and Aolidida, certainly won't fit into those neat little ranks! Neither will (at the other extreme) all by itself Patellogastropoda!

And (unranked) makes it clear to people who are not experts that the clades represent a break from the rest of the contents of the taxobox. And by the way, clades are taxa too. And clades are going to take over, slowly but surely. Taxonomy must reflect phylogeny. As we learn more and more about phylogeny, so the kind of taxonomy we use must change. Rigid ranks like the army has are not flexible enough to accurately represent the evolutionary descent of these groups.

Thanks for your interest, all good wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 01:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)