8/1/26:  To fully understand A. cuneimeris it is important to understand the history for naming this shell.  Conrad’s description was published 1846.  A review of publications from 1846 to 1954 found that authors used the name A. cuneimeris for Anomalocardia aligning with Conrad’s description.  In 1954 Abbott published his seminal first edition of American Seashell using the name A. cuneimeris for the shell found from Florida to Texas. From 1954 to 1973 authors followed Abbott and used the name A. cuneimeris in articles and field guides.  However, in 1974 Abbott published his second edition and made a significant error.  Using the same description as in his first edition he labelled this shell A. auberiana (Orbigny, 1842) and made A. cuneimeris a junior synonym.  The error was the date Abbott cited - 1842.  Orbigny’s description of A. auberiana was not published until 1853.  However, Abbott’s renaming was followed by authors until 2007 when Mikkelsen and Bieler (Seashells of Southern Florida – Bivalves) corrected the error and reversed Abbott’s synonymization and labelled this shell A. cuneimeris.

It is essential to recognize that regardless of which label authors used from 1846 to 2007 their examinations of the shells in hand persuaded them they were the same shell described by Abbott in 1954 or 1974 (Abbott used the exact same description for both A. cuneimeris in 1954 and A. auberiana in 1974).  This means to fully understand the features of this shell, as observed and reported in the literature from 1846 to 2007, the descriptions for both A. cuneimeris and A. auberiana should be utilized.

However, in 2010 Huber (Compendium of Bivalves, Vol. 1.), without any explanatory rationale, synonymized       A. auberiana with A. puella (R. A. Philippi, 1846) by simply inserting “auberiana (= puella)” in his text.  Simply asserting “auberiana (= puella)” ignored all the descriptive work reflected by authors who agreed with Abbott that A. cuneimeris and A. auberiana were synonyms. Regardless of the label, the shell these authors described was the same.  Unfortunately, subsequent to Huber authors (including WoRMS) accepted his unfounded synonymization and have created complete confusion by effectively dismissing 53 years of observations and descriptions in the literature of A. cuneimeris/auberiana by declaring “auberiana (= puella).”  Huber’s assertion that “auberiana (= puella)” cannot be supported simply by reviewing Orbigny’s description and especially his drawing.  His description is too ambiguous to clearly link to either A. cuneimeris or A. puella.  However, his drawing exactly portrays key features noted in Conrad’s and Perry & Schwengel’s* descriptions of A. cuneimeris, but not in the descriptions of A. puella or its synonym A. leptalea (Dall, 1894).

* Perry & Schwengel. 1955. Marine Shells of the Western Coast of Florida. Palenontology Research Institution, Ithaca, NY. pg. 75.