>I find it hard for you to be so tough on the thought.
>Here is a list I found on one of the sites I use.
>
>Living south of where I collected a number of fine specimens.
>Kwajalein Atoll.
>
>Ships for many, many years went to / from your ports or off shore...
>Logs as well.... And just maybe they were salted there like many
>other sites in the Pacific during and before WW II.

No, seeing as you ask, this was listed as having been TWO specimens
w/o collected within 20 years or so. And the SE part of the South
Island is cool-temperate... no way would logborne etc specimens
survive, or even reach here. And I have never found nor heard of any
"salted" or otherwise out-of-place specimens in the southern 2/3 of
NZ. Occasionally they are found around Auckland, but the climate
there is warm enough to allow chance tropical larval falls of
specimens falling off ships to survive, if not to breed. I also know
of planted specimens in the Auckland area, and it is possible that
some or all of the unquestioned  nonliving fossil & Recent
"wanderers" found there were salted by the one person. I did find a
piece of Murex once in Victoria, BC, Canada. Such salted specimens
could of course make it onto the market, but they are not so common.

Frankly it is the dealer's responsibility to provide ACCURATE
locality information with specimens. If data is doubtful, then it
should be advertised as such. If it is plainly incorrect (ie a stupid
mixup or deliberate falsification by the collector or middlemen),
then the shells should be offered "no data" or given to visiting
interested children. Selling specimens with obviously falsified data
is fraud... and before I'm told that dealers can't be expected to
know every country's location and climate, well, it's his BUSINESS to
know; all he has to do, if the locality seems odd, is to check a map.
Ignorance is no excuse.
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut
‚ Opinions stated are mine, not of the University of Otago
"There is water at the bottom of the ocean"  - Talking Heads

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