Dear friends of scaphopod molluscs,

this free (but copyrighted) database is based in its paleontological part primarily on the list of scaphopod literature published by Engeser & Riedel in the internet at "Theo and Frank´s Home Page on Fossil Scaphopoda" with more than 1 500 references. All other references are added or changed by Bernd Sahlmann from excerpts from the Zoological Record and other resources checked for references.

An updated list (2001) from Theo Engeser was incorporated into this project at version 0.84. It added more references on fossil scaphs and most of the information in the fossil "new species" and "remarks" fields. Updated List: © Institut für Paläontologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Theo Engeser, 1997-2001.

The actual versions of the scaphopod databases in MS Access 2000-format will be published in the internet at regular intervals. Have a look at: www.berndsahlmann.de. The online version of the database will also be updated regularly.

The author thanks all collaborators for their help, gift of reprints, files and copies. Nevertheless only some of the references are verified up to yet. In the section "remarks" some obvious different readings of year, volume etc. are indicated. You are kindly invited to contribute to this project. Reprints of your papers and/or e.g. scans or pdf-files of all papers dealing with scaphopods in any way are welcome. Feel free to report errors and new entries to be included.

Thanks to Vollrath Wiese and his staff from Haus der Natur in Cismar, Germany for the transfer of the database into this web based format and for hosting the files on their server.

Another free database on recent and fossil scaphopod species compiled by B. Sahlmann can be downloaded at www.berndsahlmann.de. At this site you may find some more information on recent scaphopod mollusks and pictures of remarkable tusk shells.

The first edition of this database was published online in January, 2005.