Recently, a CONCH-L discussion covered some aspects of poor, bad, and false data for shells. While searching around the WWW on a cowry- related quest, I encountered the following link-- http://abbas0.chez.tiscali.fr/pagecyptessellata.html --and although the caption says "Pearl City, Hawai [sic] -40m", it is false due the following: --Pearl City (Oahu), Hawaii, is located on the far leeward side of Pearl Harbor, a harbor which has a maximum depth of 18 meters (~60 feet) (see info at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7545/pearl/ and there are other sites where this info is available). No one, repeat, NO ONE, dives or dredges in Pearl Harbor. Only the U.S. Navy sends divers down in its waters because there are tons of unexploded ordinance scattered on and in its bottom. There has never been a reported collection of a Cypraea tessellata from Pearl Harbor, mainly for the above reasons. This particular instance of false data has been on-line for nearly two years. If it requires someone like myself--who actually worked in Pearl City, Hawaii, for years and knows about the local geography and military restrictions--to spot this obvious error, what chance does even a skilled shell enthusiast have to spot false/bad data on shells supposedly taken in the far-flung corners of the world? That points to the ‘real’ data problem: the person who is not self-collecting must have confidence in the source providing the shell and its data. Then obtaining shells becomes a kind of “confidence game” and it is no longer a matter of Nature or science, it is a matter of human perception and desire. There worse cases of data ‘fraud’ but this makes what I feel is a valid point: Its all about trust if you’re not collecting the shells yourself. A Happy 2003 to those using the Common Era calendar. Bob Dayle (a.k.a. ‘makuabob’) http://www.cowrys.org _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 3 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_virusprotection_3mf