Systematic, taxonomic and biogeographic relationships of Argentine flat oysters

摘要

During the early 19th century, two gifted young European naturalists documented South American biodiversity as participants in separate voyages of discovery. Thanks to the fame generated by his subsequent theory of evolution (Darwin, 1859), Charles Darwin’s formative voyage aboard the HMS Beagle (1831–36) has long overshadowed that of his French contemporary Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny on the corvette La Meuse (1826–33). However, d’Orbigny was arguably the more prolific collector and documented his prodigious South American work in 11 volumes of publications, a substantial fraction of which dealt with molluscs (d’Orbigny, 1834–1847). Our study focuses on the systematic, taxonomic and biogeographic affinities of two South American Atlantic coast flat oysters that he collected and described: Ostrea puelchana d’Orbigny, 1842 and O. spreta d’Orbigny, 1846.