| Author | Killeen I., Aldridge D. & Oliver G. |
| Year | 2004 |
| Title | Freshwater Bivalves of the British Isles |
| ISBN | 1 85153 892 5 |
| Series | FSC Aidgap Keys - Occasional Publication |
| Type | Book/Report |
| How Complete | All the British species known at the time |
| Source | FSC Aidgap Keys - Occasional Publication, 82, 114pp, Field Studies Council |
| Illustrations | Beautiful colour photographs throughout, as well as paintings of salient features. |
| Review (by Malcolm Storey) | Rather expensive, but not unreasonably so for a specialist publication with so many colour photographs. The aim of the guide is to enable identification by external features and to illustrate the range of geographical, ecophenotypic and growth stage variation. Consequently a goodly number of high quality photographs are included. Identification starts on page 22 with tabular (Table 2) and accompanying pictorial (Identification Chart 1) guides to higher level taxa - the table lists what to what to look for in Id Chart 1. This leads to Id Charts 2 through 9 which take you to species. Id Chart 4 shows Unionid syphons, 5 shows juvenile Unionoid shells which can look very different from the adults. The smaller speces are presented in Id Charts 7 through 9. Each chart is a double page with descripion and photographs of external features on the left page and painting and description of internal features (hinge) on the right. Table 3 summarises the characteristics of the smaller species. Detailed species accounts follow with distribution maps and more photographs. |
| Examine | in the hand in the Hand ( with x8 or x10 hand lens is also useful) |
| Specimen Preparation | Some species require cleaned shells; larger spp can often be found washed up. |
| Identification difficulty | Small species are difficult, larger species easier. |
