Dear ALL,

Most collectors have some time or other had a gruesome experience during
shell collecting.
In a recent paper published in the last issue of the Journal of
Conchology:
A new species of Melanopsis from the Golan Heights, Southern Levant>,
the authors Heller & Sivan end up with the acknowledgements thus;
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The British Museum (Natural History) lent us the syntypes of M. crenita.
Mrs Sarah Ehrlich kindly carried out the water analysis. Prof. K. Bandel
kindly gave us the Esperiana shells, for comparison. While collecting
Melanopsis for this study, an unidentified son-of-a-bitch stole my car;
it was later found with a wrecked chassis, which cost me $4000 to
repair. As this little paper has 1557 words, this means $2.569 per word.
Is this the most expensive malacological paper ever to have been
written.
I bet there are many others with similar incidents.

regards,

--
Constantine Mifsud
4, Shepherds' Str.,
Rabat RBT 02,
MALTA.
e-mail [log in to unmask]