Talk:Dentalium shell

A note
Otis Halfmoon, a prominant scholar and Nez Perce Indian, has stated that the Nez Perce tribe did not practice dentalium. According to Mr. Halfmoon this name is a misnomer and was given to to the Nez Perce people mistakenly by white settlers who confused them with the other nearby tribes. The Nez Perce have their own name for themselves. Tsoopnitpeloo, which means "The Walking Out People."

Further information is found at http://www.lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=984 Dypak (talk) 02:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Dypak

Propose move
Why is this article Dentalium (anthropology) as opposed to simply Dentalium or Dentalia, especially since both redirect back here? I would like to propose a move back to Dentalium or if it's necessary to have a different, how about Dentalium shell? Anthropologists don't necessarily use dentalium shells, but dressmakers, jewelers, and beadworkers do.-Uyvsdi (talk) 23:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)Uyvsdi

More info and refs
Copied from Uyvsdi's talk page:

Hi Uyvsdi, Scaphopods (tusk shells) are a class of mollusks which I don't really know that much about. I did add a bit of info to the article, but I am sorry to say I was too lazy to add the refs, which I am listing here instead if you or someone else feels like doing the work to put them in place.

It seems clear that Antalis pretiosum (G.B. Sowerby, 1860) is simply a more modern name for Dentalium pretiosum. For the geographical range info of this species, I used page 283, R. Tucker Abbott & S. Peter Dance, 1982, Compendium of seashells: a color guide to more than 4,200 of the world’s marine shells E.P. Dutton Inc., New York. ISBN: 0-525-93269-0. In that source they call it the "Indian money Tusk" shell.

As for Dentalium hexagonum, it seems that the species that lives off of California is correctly called Dentalium neohexagonum "Sharp & Pilsbry" in H. A. Pilsbry & B. Sharp, 1897, range info taken from page 94, McLean, James H., 1978 Marine Shells of Southern California, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Museum, Science Series 24, Revised Edition: 1-104. In this source they call this species the "six-sided tooth" shell.

I am not sure what species Dentalium hexagonum A.A. Gould, 1859 is, it seems perhaps it is really what is now known as Dentalium octangulatum, an Indo-Pacific species.

As you might imagine, "hexagonum" and "neohexagonum" are references to the fact that the shells have six sides, are hexagonal in cross-section, unlike A. pretiosum, which is round in cross-section.

Invertzoo (talk) 12:46, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete Sentence
The following

Alfred Kroeber accounted for the

was left dangling off the end of the california section. That is how it was added. I have removed it as of now, but if someone knows the point that was trying to be made, they should add it. Falderol (talk) 19:48, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Dentalium shell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100306074119/http://glimmerdream.com/gemjourneys/shells/history to http://glimmerdream.com/gemjourneys/shells/history

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:59, 25 January 2018 (UTC)