Opercs present a perennial problem for shells collectors and dealers:
they are an important part of the animal's exoskeleton, hence complement
the shell portion nicely, yet they are separate from it, hence easy to
misplace during the cleaning process, which often involves chlorine
products - which have an unfortunate tendancy to eat most operculi :(.
When only a couple of specimens are involved, there is no problem,  but
when one is cleaning a decent-sized "batch" of operculate shells of
similar size, it is tricky to ensure that each shell ends up matched up
with its original operc when all the chips are down.  Hence, the great
majority of collectors and dealers are usually *quite* happy if their
shells end up with an operc from the same species, and of a size which
more or less fits the shell's aperature.  However, as we have been
reading for the past couple of days, that doesn't always happen.......
the most extreme example i've heard on this topic, was a seller of
shells who kept a drawer full of opercs, mostly of the family
Muricidae.  When a shell came along which "should" have had an operc in
his opinion, he would simply hop on over to the drawer and see what
could be found, drawing upon his memory of what the species' "trap door"
would normally look like, to avoid too manay REALLY obvious errors.  //
There is also at least one person on Conch-l who collects mainly opercs,
perhaps because they take up far less space than the shells they
represent, but it must also be admitted that when studied closely, they
have a beauty of their own which often goes un-noticed by those
primarily interested in the shell whose builder they were designed to
protect.

Waiting form the rain in a balmy (for November!!) New Scotland,
Ross Mayhew.

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