Hi Guido
>Milan just warned me that his shells from an ongoing exchange with me have
>incorrect data. He fortunately found this out and was apparently cheated by
>his supplier.
I was the one who discovered the problem, when I plotted the data on
a marine chart.
>In this particular case we are safe.
>
>However, I want to point out that the vast majority of our shells comes with
>correct labels, at least the labels that we get are copied and going with
>the same text to the collector. Modifications that we apply are for example
>missing country, and we put it in an always identical order, starting with
>the country, finishing with biotope and date.
>Our well known Philippine supplier makes a data slip FOR EVERY shell.
That is as it should be, unless the person has a foolproof method of
keeping lots together without danger of mixing.
>In rare other cases exact data are not supplied. This is often so when it
>concerns deep water material, where the people invested huge amounts to find
>the shells and they want to keep, understandable, the GPS data secret in
>order to avoid competition from other boats.
GPS data isn't such a worry, though I use it myself where a GPS is
available (when I go out on the marine lab boat to dredge). However I
am told that many Philippino fishermen actually falsify their data to
hide the real localities from competitors. Knowing many Indians
personally, it is clear that folk from poor societies are not honest,
and lying is a way of life!
>Russian derived specimen are occasionally very correct, but often very
>vague. Some of the fisherman collect without taking notes on the spots. They
>then sell everything in a bunch to collectors/dealers as for example "from
>Saya de Malha".
Milan's specimens' data was way out. The GPS data in no way matched
the depth, so at least one was falsified. It wasn't a confusion
between easting or westing (the specimens were from within kilometers
of the International Date Line), meters and feet/fathoms etc.
something was, as Bruce Marshall told me, "a
complete fabrication"... not a man to mince words.
>Now, there is for sure a tendency in labeling that becomes better and
>better. If one compares the labels from the seventies with the labels of
>today: these are two different worlds, and this is very positive.
True. I must say that (sorry) Femorale supplies by far the best and
most consistent data of any dealer I have dealt with. But even Joae &
Marcus occasionally get stuck with dud "data" such as a label which
says: "Philippines".
>The latest modern collectors use GPS. From two collecting trips this year,
>80 % of our shells have correct GPS info, most often to 5 or 9 m correct !
>Lorenz also supplied many shells on the latest shell show with extensive GPS
>data.
For shore or land material, lacking my own GPS or the funds with
which to buy one (also keeping in mind that if there are fewer than 3
GPS satellites above simultaneously, there can be a position error of
up to several hundred meters), I use the country's large-scale
topographic map grid to give 6-or-8-figure gridrefs. Here in NZ this
is a 1:50,000 scale. None of these maps, of course, use the official
World Grid... unfortunately! Gridrefs are far nicer to use than GPS.
But unfortunately a NZ gridref means nothing to say someone in
Maybegunnadoo, Australia.
>I want to take the opportunity to answer the following:
>
>> He contacted Poppe to complain about this. Poppe's reply was that he
> > did not have time (ie couldn't be bothered) to correct the data!
>
>This concerns two matters: wrong determination, fake localities.
>
>As for the determination, we do an effort to have correct names, from where
>hundreds of hours a year with the nose in the library, who is extensive. But
>I'll not go and check a "Limacina bulimoides (d'Orbigny)" when these shells
>are labeled as such. When it concerns a Volute (or most other popular
>families), of course, this will be corrected. The effort can be seen in the
>number of references to literature under remarks.
Of course a lot of shells are just not identifiable; you will not
find an illustration anywhere. Many species are constantly
misidentified/confused in the popular literature. Quite a few are
only correctly known to a very few individuals or specialists, who
have access to rare papers. And others are plain hars to identify;
ordering Epitoniidae is almost ALWAYS a lottery, with little
likelihood that what you order is what you will get!
>Fake localities: if the mistake (or falsification) is obvious, or we suspect
>faking, then we react. But in normal come and go shells we have simply no
>time to check where is for example "Cape Brett" in new Zealand, and if this
>locality is plausible for this New Zealand shell or not. In this we have to
>rely on the suppliers of course.
Er... well, actually the quotation above was not referring to Milan's
problem, but to that of a collector who supplied material to you. For
obvious reasons I will not reveal his name! But he told me that the
specimens he supplied you were offered for sale with incorrect data,
and he contacted you to set this right; he says you told him you did
not have time to correct the data. I very much hope he misunderstood
you; he took this to mean that you couldn't be bothered to correct
the data, and would sell the shells with the incorrect data. It
occurs to me just now that your reply (though I do not know the exact
words either he or you used) might be taken to mean that you did not
have time right then to correct them, but would do so before sale.
That would be the right thing to do: Either hold the shells until you
have time to rectify the error, or sell them as ordered and correct
the data for each individual specimen before shipping.
One thing I have seen, specifically with specimens supplied by me
(and collected by me!) directly or indirectly to dealers, is partial
data. These several lots were supplied with GPS data etc; none had
this data on the labels supplied with the shells to the customers,
whom I caught up with by chance! So thes fellows ended up with
complete data after all, lucky them. HINT HINT
A note to anyone who has purchased a specimen of Chlamys
(Talochlamys) dichroa from any dealer, with data being off Dunedin,
New Zealand, you can add to this that I was the collector, and the
boat was RV "Munida", the Otago University Marine Sciences Department
trawler. For a good reason I had asked that the boat's name to be
withheld from data supplied to customers, but have recently found
that this is unnecessary.
--
Andrew Grebneff
165 Evans St, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand
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Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut
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