Journal of Conchology | The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland

The Journal of Conchology is the world's oldest continuing publication on the subject. It was established in 1874 as The Quarterly Journal of Conchology and precedes the founding of the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland by two years. The Journal is a flagship publication for the Society. In recent decades, a printed Journal has been published twice a year, but effective 2024 (volume 45) the Journal is published exclusively online, with articles published as they become ready. (ISSN 2755-3531, online; ISSN 0022-0019, print)

The Journal of Conchology publishes peer reviewed scientific papers that are relevant to the aims of the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. It contains both full-length scientific papers and short communications on molluscs, with emphasis on promoting conservation, biogeography, and taxonomy. The contents typically include descriptions of new species from anywhere in the world and reports concerning the ecology, distribution, and status of molluscs. Both living and fossil molluscs are dealt with. In addition, the Journal publishes obituaries and book reviews.

As a scientific publication, papers are published only after review by at least two referees. All articles are now provided with a DOI and registered in ZooBank. Since 2024, articles in the journal are archived in Zenodo.org (https://zenodo.org/communities/jconch) in addition to this website.

Members and non-members may submit contributions to the Honorary Editor. Detailed Instructions for authors on how to submit articles are here, but you can also download these instructions as a PDF here.

Current issue
For earlier volumes, see below

Aims and Scopes

The Journal of Conchology publishes peer reviewed scientific papers that are relevant to the aims of the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. The aims of the Society are: "The promotion of studies on molluscan species, and in particular the identification, recording and conservation of land, freshwater and marine Mollusca." Any papers on previously unpublished work whose scope fits into these aims may be submitted to the Journal for publication.

Editorial Board
Hon. Editor – Robert G. Forsyth

Associate Editors:
Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (Israel)
Robert Cameron (UK)
Zhe-Yu Chen (China)
David Holyoak (Portugal)
Michal Horsák (Czechia)
Manuel Malaquias (Portugal)
Barna Páll-Gergely (Hungary)
Julia Piza (Argentina)
Ira Richling (Germany)
Carmen Salas (Spain)
Rodrigo Salvador (Finland)
Martin Zuschin (Austria)
Ben Rowson (UK)
Diego Zelaya (Argentina)
Guoyi Zhang (Australia)

Peer-review
Submitted manuscripts are published after peer review, revision by the author(s) if needed, and acceptance by the Editor. anonymous.

Open Access Statement
Journal of Conchology articles are available for all to read, download, copy and distribute free of charge, and access is unrestricted to all articles published in Journal of Conchology. Past issues back to volume 39 (2006) are available on our website. Older issues (before volume 39) will be available at the BHL website (Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org)).

Copyright and License
Published articles are copyright by the author(s) under the Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0 license. It is the authors’ responsibility to secure all necessary copyright permissions for the use of third-party materials in their manuscript.

Publication fees
There is no article processing charge (APC) for members of the Society to publish in the Journal of Conchology. However, for non-members, an APC will be charged for publication. This is £33, which is equivalent to the annual membership fee. If the paper is of considerable size, an APC fee may apply. Authors will be queried on submission of their manuscript and a fee agreed before processing of manuscripts.

Fee waiver
Once the publication fee has been reinstated, authors without institutional support who are unable to meet the fees can enquire about the Cameron Fund. This is a small amount generously donated by Robert Cameron to assist those that cannot afford the cost of publication. However, the Society does encourage those that can pay to do so, so that the Cameron Fund, which is a finite amount of money, can be used by those that really need it.

Plagiarism
The Journal does not tolerate plagiarism. We reserve the right to check for plagiarism and, if detected, the Journal reserves the right to decline submissions suspected of plagiarism at any point during the assessment process. It will also retract articles found to violate plagiarism guidelines after publication. In addition, the Journal reserves the right to report any suspicion of plagiarism to the senior author's institution.

Repository policy
Authors may deposit a copy of their paper in their institution’s repository or on ResearchGate or other such sharing application.

Digital object identifiers (DOI)
DOI are acquired by the Editor from CrossRef.

Online access to the Journal

To further the objectives of the Society the Journal of Conchology became a fully open-access from 2023, and from the beginning of 2024 it became digital only. Printed issues ceased at the end of 2023.

All volumes prior to volume 39 are available via the Biodiversity Heritage Library (links provided below to the individual issues).

Volumes available on this site

2025: Vol. 45 (3)

2024: Vol. 45 (1) | 45 (2)

2023: Vol. 44 (5) | 44 (6)

2022: Vol. 44 (3) | 44 (4)

2021: Vol. 44 (1) | 44 (2)

2020: Vol. 43 (5) | 43 (6)

2019: Vol. 43 (3) | 43 (4)

2018: Vol. 43 (1) | 43 (2)

2017: Vol. 42 (5) | 42 (6)

2016: Vol. 42 (3) | 42 (4)