Hello Conch-lers, Hope you are doing GEM! I have been enjoying my days in the list, and found myself making an extensive use of the archived information - it is worth gold, and you are really building something unique here, Thank you! My shell world is going great, and I have been sleeping over some ideas, that might end up the wrong way... After developing my aquarium experience with fresh water discus fish, and getting most of them killed because of the miriade of problems that tends to kill them, I am looking forward to marine water, coral reefs and eventually live Cypraeidae. My goal would be to have the necessary tanks to cover the different world- wide marine provinces, and to sucessfully keep and study the habits and needs of the creatures. I have plenty ideas about laboratory work that could help solve a number of conchological mysteries, and to record the unknown behaviour of the animals. Of course, I am feeling very lucky for the up comming decade, but I would need a little bit of your luck, in order to obtain the specimens. If anyone feels there is a possibility of collecting and exporting live cowries (they could eventually survive a mail trip, if a couple of measures are taken) I would be really pleased to exchange them for the specimen shells offered at my web site. Please contact me for more details. www.geocities.com/shellvitae All the best, David