Talk:Cowry
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I do not think there is any European Cowry(family Cypraeidae) as small as 5 mm. Probably some confusion with family Triviidae. Charles Geerts www.seashellgeerts.com
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[edit] Standard Spelling
Why is this article insisting on the spelling "cowry" as normative? Most dictionaries don't even list "cowry" as a variant of cowrie, and most of the exceptions just cite it as a exactly that -- a variant of cowrie. See Webster's Revised Unabridged, American Heritage, Dictionary.com Unabridged, the Encyclopedia Britannica, etc. In accordance with the WP:MOS, I have looked into whether this is a difference between national varieties of English, and I found no evidence that it is. I intend to move the page and change the misleading leading line about the word "sometimes" being spelled cowrie, unless I'm missing something. Mtiffany (talk) 20:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Size of European cowries
I do not think there is any European cowry with size as small as 5 mm. Probably some confusion with family Triviidae. Charles Geerts www.seashellgeerts.com
[edit] as a currency
From the lecture notes of "Economics, 3rd Edition" (Audio course by The Teaching Company) by Timothy Taylor (professor at Macalester College and Managing Editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives): "In the history of the world, the item used for money over the broadest geographic area and for the longest period of time is probably the cowrie, a mollusk shell found mainly off the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean." —Preceding unsigned comment added by DKEdwards (talk • contribs) 07:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Video in Commons of two live-collected Cypraea caputserpentis...
Aloha!
I have uploaded a brief (~20 sec.) video of 2 Snakehead cowries [generally named Cypraea caputserpentis Linneaus, 1758 but these are Hawaiian cowries and may be the subspecies caputophidii, a.k.a. Erosaria (Ocellaria) caputophidii Schilder, 1927]. I'm not experienced at editing these articles but I will try to make it possible for anyone to view the video by clicking on the image already in the Cowry article,... unless, of course, someone else beats me to it! (Nudge, nudge,... wink, wink!)
The video is at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Cypraea_caputserpentis.ogg (There is no soundtrack.)
Makuabob 14:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
OK! I could not find a way to make the still image have a link to the video, so I have replaced the still image WITH the video. There may be formatting issues with the long list of species names, depending on just how wide a person's browser is set. More than 800 pixels may have the list bleeding into the Taxobox.
I will try to find a formatting guide on how to keep the list below the end of the Taxobox. Makuabob 22:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Wow! Thanks, Mgiganteus1 !!
That's a great fix. Looks good!
Makuabob 00:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Added another video but forgot that being logged-in on Commons did not mean logged-in here; thus, the IP number vice my log-in name. Makuabob 01:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why did "Invertzoo" chop up the article?...
It seems the COWRY article has been demoted from semi-coherent english to near gibberish. As in,
Cowry, rarely spelled cowrie, plural always cowries, is the common name for a one group of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. The word cowry is perhaps most often used for the shells of these sea snails.
Cowries are scientifically known as the genus Cypraea and family Cypraeidae.
(It is worth noting that a few species in the family Ovulidae are also often referred to as cowries, and in the British Isles the local Trivia species Triviidae are sometimes called cowries. These other two famlies are somewhat closely related to the Cypraeidae.)
Many people find the shiny, porcelain-like shells of cowries pleasing to look at and to handle.
I see "cowrie" rather frequently. It is not a 50-50 split but certainly much more than once in a hundred. One-in-a-hundred, to me, is rare. What source says "cowrie" is rare?
What is "name for a one group of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks" supposed to mean? If "Invertzoo" is a native speaker of the english language, he/she shouldn't drink heavily AND edit Wikipedia. I have a half century of experience using edited American english and I am having trouble trying arrange that phrase into something sensible.
"Cowries are scientifically known as the genus Cypraea and family Cypraeidae" is redundant. It's in the Taxobox. Why not describe the entire sequence?
"...the local Trivia species Triviidae..." Is the local Trivia species named Triviidae?
"These other two famlies are somewhat closely related to the Cypraeidae." What about the Erato, or the Cypraeacassis, or Jenneria, OR Pseudocypraea? All are "closely related" to the Cypraeidae. Erato are frequently mistaken for tiny cowries. Jenneria also is mistaken for an unusual type of cowry. See the article at http://cowrys.org/archive/NSN127CY.HTM#C for more info.
I suggest that the original text be restored until something more comprehensible is available.
Makuabob 17:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Taxonomy issues are vague...
The Cypraea, according to Wikipedia's own item on the Cypraeidae, is a 'tribe' in the sub-family of Cypraeinae, not a genus of its own. The deleted line asserted that the Cypraea was a genus in the family Cypraeidae. Either this line in the 'Cowry' article had to go, or the item on Cypraeidae has to be changed. By deleting this particular reference, I am NOT saying that I agree with the Cypraeidae item (which has internal problems), only that the two statements are at odds.
Some taxonomists make finer distinctions than others when it comes to just how different one 'group' of cowries is from another. Linneaus coined the genus Cypraea to include all cowry-like shells. Times are different now and some of the animals turn out to be not so similar to those generally associated with the vast majority of cowry-type shells.
There is a standing debate between Conchologists (shell morphology) and Malacologists (animal characteristics, of which the shell is one part). If the Malacologists take over defining cypraeid species, what is to happen in the studies of extinct Cypraea? A large number of Cypraeid fossils are true fossils, i.e., all of the original material has been lost and other minerals have assumed the shells' shapes; no tissue remains, none of the original structures.
(The parenthetical paragraph in the Cowry article will be worked on next...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Makuabob (talk • contribs) 16:26, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
- Both the Cypraeidae article and this one list Cypraea as a genus. However, I think the sentence you removed was redundant to the taxobox anyway. Mgiganteus1 16:57, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
