Winston Ponder
Encyclopedia
Winston F. Ponder B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.D, D.Sc. (born about 1944) is a noted malacologist from New Zealand
who has named and described many marine animals, especially micromolluscs. He is a graduate of the University of Auckland
, New Zealand.
Ponder was the principal research scientist in the malacology
section of the Australian Museum
, Sydney
, Australia. He helped to build up the museum's mollusc collection so that it became one of the most extensive of its kind in the world. Ponder retired from this post after a long career of more than forty years of research on molluscs, and he is now an Honorary Fellow.
He is also a managing editor of the Malacological Society of Australasia, the Natural History Museum
of Los Angeles
, and the South Australian Museum
in Adelaide
. He has been the president of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists, and he is the managing editor of the journal Molluscan Research.
Early in his career, in 1964, he worked on Antarctic collections together with Richard Dell
and Alan Beu, resulting in a major monograph on the Antarctic bivalves, chiton
s and scaphopods.
Ponder is the author of more than 100 research publications. Many of these are on the subjects of the freshwater molluscs of Australia, and on invertebrate
conservation. However, his major contribution was a taxonomy
of the Gastropoda
, which he published together with David R. Lindberg
in 1997 This was the last major publication on the taxonomy of the Gastropoda that was based on the morphology
of snail
s and slug
s (their internal and external shapes and forms), and did not take into account any analysis of their DNA
or RNA
.
In 2008, again with David Lindberg, he edited the book "Phylogeny and Evolution of the Mollusca" in which 36 experts provided an up-to-date review on the evolutionary history of the Mollusca
, based on reinvestigation of morphological
characters, molecular data and the fossil record.
In 2008 he received the prestigious Australian Marine Sciences Association Silver Jubilee Award, for a lifetime of achievement in research on marine molluscs.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
who has named and described many marine animals, especially micromolluscs. He is a graduate of the University of Auckland
University of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
, New Zealand.
Ponder was the principal research scientist in the malacology
Malacology
Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology which deals with the study of the Mollusca , the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, octopus and squid, and numerous other kinds, many of which have shells...
section of the Australian Museum
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is the oldest museum in Australia, with an international reputation in the fields of natural history and anthropology. It features collections of vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, as well as mineralogy, palaeontology, and anthropology...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia. He helped to build up the museum's mollusc collection so that it became one of the most extensive of its kind in the world. Ponder retired from this post after a long career of more than forty years of research on molluscs, and he is now an Honorary Fellow.
He is also a managing editor of the Malacological Society of Australasia, the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, USA in 1913 as the Museum of History, Science, and Art. The moving force behind it was a museum association founded in 1910. Its distinctive main building, with fitted marble walls and domed and...
of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and the South Australian Museum
South Australian Museum
The South Australian Museum is a museum in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultural precinct of the Adelaide Parklands.-History:...
in Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
. He has been the president of the Society of Australian Systematic Biologists, and he is the managing editor of the journal Molluscan Research.
Early in his career, in 1964, he worked on Antarctic collections together with Richard Dell
Richard Dell
Dr Richard Kenneth Dell was a New Zealand malacologist. He was born in Auckland. As a young boy, he took an interest in shells, collecting them from the shores of Waitemata Harbour. He even managed to start a "museum" in his backyard...
and Alan Beu, resulting in a major monograph on the Antarctic bivalves, chiton
Chiton
Chitons are small to large, primitive marine molluscs in the class Polyplacophora.There are 900 to 1,000 extant species of chitons in the class, which was formerly known as Amphineura....
s and scaphopods.
Ponder is the author of more than 100 research publications. Many of these are on the subjects of the freshwater molluscs of Australia, and on invertebrate
Invertebrate
An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...
conservation. However, his major contribution was a taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
of the Gastropoda
Gastropoda
The Gastropoda or gastropods, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large taxonomic class within the phylum Mollusca. The class Gastropoda includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes from microscopic to quite large...
, which he published together with David R. Lindberg
David R. Lindberg
David R. Lindberg is an American malacologist and professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the Curator for the University of California Museum of Paleontology and co-editor of the journal Molecular Systematics and Phylogeography of Mollusks.Much of his...
in 1997 This was the last major publication on the taxonomy of the Gastropoda that was based on the morphology
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
of snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
s and slug
Slug
Slug is a common name that is normally applied to any gastropod mollusc that lacks a shell, has a very reduced shell, or has a small internal shell...
s (their internal and external shapes and forms), and did not take into account any analysis of their DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
or RNA
RNA
Ribonucleic acid , or RNA, is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life....
.
In 2008, again with David Lindberg, he edited the book "Phylogeny and Evolution of the Mollusca" in which 36 experts provided an up-to-date review on the evolutionary history of the Mollusca
Mollusca
The Mollusca , common name molluscs or mollusksSpelled mollusks in the USA, see reasons given in Rosenberg's ; for the spelling mollusc see the reasons given by , is a large phylum of invertebrate animals. There are around 85,000 recognized extant species of molluscs. Mollusca is the largest...
, based on reinvestigation of morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
characters, molecular data and the fossil record.
In 2008 he received the prestigious Australian Marine Sciences Association Silver Jubilee Award, for a lifetime of achievement in research on marine molluscs.
Higher taxa
- Subclass EogastropodaEogastropodaEogastropoda was a previously used taxonomic category of snails or gastropods, a subclass which was erected by Ponder and Lindberg in 1997. It was one of two great divisions of the class Gastropoda, the snails. The other subclass of gastropods was the Orthogastropoda.Eogastropoda were the more...
Ponder & Lindberg, 1997 - Order SorbeoconchaSorbeoconchaSorbeoconcha is a taxonomic clade of snails, i.e. gastropods, mainly marine species with gills and opercula, within the clade Caenogastropoda.The taxon Sorbeoconcha was named by Winston Ponder and David R. Lindberg in 1997.-1997 taxonomy:...
Ponder & Lindberg, 1997 - Suborder HypsogastropodaHypsogastropodaAccording to the Taxonomy of the Gastropoda Hypsogastropoda is a clade of parasitic marine gastropods within the clade Caenogastropoda....
Ponder & Lindberg, 1997
Families
- EatoniellidaeEatoniellidaeEatoniellidae, commonly known as eatoniellids, are a taxonomic family of minute sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Cingulopsoidea....
Ponder, 1965 - RastodentidaeRastodentidaeRastodentidae is a taxonomic family of minute sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Littorinimorpha.According to taxonomy of the Gastropoda by Bouchet & Rocroi the family Rastodentidae has no subfamilies.-Genera:...
Ponder, 1966 - ElachisinidaeElachisinidaeElachisinidae is a family of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Rissooidea and the clade Littorinimorpha.- Taxonomy :Genera within the family Elachisinidae include:* Genus Elachisina W.H...
Ponder, 1985 - Emblandidae Ponder, 1985
- EpigridaeEpigridaeEpigridae is a family of very small sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Rissooidea, and clade Littorinimorpha.- Taxonomy :Genera within the family Epigridae include:* Genus Epigrus C. Hedley, 1903 - the type genus- References :...
Ponder, 1985 - AmathinidaeAmathinidaeAmathinidae, is a taxonomic family mostly consisting of small and minute sea snails, marine heterobranch gastropod molluscs or micromolluscs in the superfamily Pyramidelloidea....
Ponder, 1987 - CalopiidaeCalopiidaeCalopiidae is a family of sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Rissooidea....
Ponder, 1999
Genera
- Microestea Ponder, 1965
- Rufodardanula Ponder, 1965
- Rastodens Ponder, 1966
- Rissolitorina Ponder, 1966
- Tridentifera Ponder,1966
- Fictonoba Ponder, 1967
- Pseudodiala Ponder, 1967
- Pseudestea Ponder, 1967
- PseudoskenellaPseudoskenellaPseudoskenella is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Pyramidellidae, the pyrams and their allies.-Species:Species within the genus Pseudoskenella include:* Pseudoskenella depressa Ponder, 1973-External links:*...
Ponder, 1973 - Lirobarleeia Ponder, 1983
- Kutikina Ponder & Waterhouse, 1997 http://mollus.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/63/3/441
- KessneriaKessneriaKessneria is a genus of air-breathing freshwater snails, aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the family Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails.All species within family Planorbidae have sinistral shells.-Species:Species within this genus include:...
Walker & Ponder, 2001
Species in temporal order
- Aspella ponderiAspella ponderiAspella ponderi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails....
Radwin & D' Attilio, 1976 - Heliacus cerdaleus ponderi Garrard, 1977
- Limatula (Stabilima) ponderi Fleming, 1978
- Echineulima ponderi Warén, 1980
- Pisinna ponderi Palazzi, 1982
- Notocrater ponderi B. A. Marshall, 1986
- Oliva (Miniaceoliva) caeruleaOliva caeruleaOliva caerulea is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Olividae, the olives....
ponderi Petuch & Sargent, 1986 - Sassia (Sassia) ponderiSassia ponderiSassia ponderi is a species of predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Ranellidae, the triton snails, triton shells or tritons....
Beu, 1986 - Tritonoharpa ponderiTritonoharpa ponderiTritonoharpa ponderi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cancellariidae, the nutmeg snails....
Beu & Maxwell, 1987 - Favartia (Favartia) ponderiFavartia ponderiFavartia ponderi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails....
Myers & d'Attilio, 1989 - Amalda (Alcospira) ponderiAmalda ponderiAmalda ponderi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Olividae, the olives....
Ninomiya, 1991 - Choristella ponderiChoristella ponderiChoristella ponderi is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Lepetellidae....
McLean, 1992 - Austrotrochaclis ponderi B. A. Marshall, 1995
- Powellisetia ponderiPowellisetia ponderiPowellisetia ponderi is a species of minute sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk or micromollusk in the family Rissoidae....
Numanami, 1996 - Fissidentalium ponderi Lamprell & Healy, 1998
- Amplirhagada ponderi Köhler, 2010