>"Snails" is interpreted by customs as "live land snails that will
>devour whole farms if they get off the plane".

Yep... pig-ignorance. "Midwestern Wheat Crop Destroyed by Rampaging
Pteropods..."

>One possible approach would be to start explaining in detail what each
>specimen is.  This got my brother through security fairly quickly with
>a backpack of fossils.

not in New Zealand... where customs officials have told me that
fossils are dug out of the ground and may carry unwanted organisms...
so declaring them as rocks won't help. I guess, if they are
molluscan, I could call them shells... as this would be entirely true.
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut
‚ Opinions stated are mine, not those of Otago University
"There is water at the bottom of the ocean"  - Talking Heads

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs
To leave this list, click on the following web link:
http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1
Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and
click leave the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------