Greetings,
 
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.  I was just at the Cal Academy of
Sciences looking through the shell collection and found multiple examples
of shells that had been donated by various collectors, and in all but a
few instances there were little to no associated data.  Since I was
trying to determine if a couple of my samples had been found
north of their reported range, the "dataless" shells were of no use to me.
 
On the other hand, when assessing phenotypic variation in shell morphology
and color, I found these same collections invaluable.  I was only
interested in looking at variability and identifying species.
 
Steve Lonhart
Department of Biology           Office:  (408) 459-4276
University of California        FAX:     (408) 459-4882
Santa Cruz, CA  95064           email:   [log in to unmask]