Concept
The Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (or TIP) published by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas Press, is a definitive multi-authored work of some 50 volumes, written by more than 300 paleontologists, and covering every phylum, class, order, family, and genus of fossil and extant (still living) invertebrate animals. The prehistoric invertebrates are described as to their taxonomy, morphology, paleoecology, stratigraphic and paleogeographic range. However, taxa with no fossil record whatsoever have just a very brief listing. Publication of the decades-long Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology is a work-in-progress; and therefore it is not yet complete: For example, there is no volume yet published regarding the post-Paleozoic era caenogastropods (a molluscan group including the whelk and periwinkle). Furthermore, every so often, previously published volumes of the Treatise are revised. Raymond C. Moore, the project's founder and first editor, originally envisioned this Treatise in invertebrate paleontology as comprising just three large volumes, and totaling only three thousand pages. The project began with work on a few, mostly slim volumes in which a single senior specialist in a distinct field of invertebrate paleozoology would summarize one particular group. As a result, each publication became a comprehensive compilation of everything known at that time for each group. Examples of this stage of the project are Part G. Bryozoa, by Ray S. Bassler (the first volume, published in 1953), and Part P. Arthropoda Part 2, the Chelicerata by Alexander Petrunkevitch (1955/1956). Around 1959 or 1960, as more and larger invertebrate groups were being addressed, the incompleteness of the then-current state of affairs became apparent. So several senior editors of the Treatise started major research programs to fill in the evident gaps. Consequently, the succeeding volumes, while still maintaining the original format, began to change from being a set of single-authored compilations into being major research projects in their own right.