Re: Pruvotfolia pselliotes from Turkey

Dear Erwin,
Thanks for the reference to the Mediterranean record in your checklist which was queried in Bernard's message. Even from Australia, I agree that the Granada coast is in the Mediterranean - if just. Checklists like yours are an extremely valuable first step, but if they have no references to the source of the record, or an accompanying photo, then they can't really be used as 'evidence'. Building up scientific knowledge is a slow painstaking process and we need to be able to follow the trail of evidence back to the original 'fact' or observation. If I published a list of opisthobranchs from southeastern Australia, I wouldn't expect anyone to use it as 'fact' unless it included photos, specimen data, and a full bibliography. Even the most diligent workers can make mistakes so we must be able to go back to the original information. I guess the Gastropteron rubrum v. G. meckeli problem is a case in point. Assumptions were made very early on and then many later workers just accepted that G. meckeli was introduced by Kosse in 1813 without checking the original source.

It can be a painfully slow process, but it works. This is not a criticism of your checklist which is a valuable resource. In a perfect world your list would have references, there would be 48 hours in a day and we would all have a team of assistants to help us with our websites.
Best wishes,
Bill Rudman