Agreed, and it is not just anecdotal records or word-of-mouth (as in
here on Conch-L)

those of us who spend time on iNaturalist either posting or browsing
"observations" , or as identifiers of the taxa in said observations,
can attest to the apparently increasing frequency. There was one
stretch of a week or two some months ago, when every day brought to light
several new or older databased observations of Bractechlamys vexillum
(an Indo-Pacific species) turning up all along the east coast of the
USA.

Yes it is annoying and perhaps some of the curators or professional
researchers can comment on whether the resulting 'noise' poses any
potential hazards to capturing clean data on diversity or
biogeographical species distributions.

On 2/26/24, Vicky Wall <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Those shells were most likely from beach parties, scavenger hunts, or
> weddings. It's annoying, but the practice seems to be happening more often
> now.
> Vicky Wall
>
> On Mon, Feb 26, 2024, 12:47 PM Karlynn Morgan <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> It could very well be you collected a few "wedding shells" or shells that
>> someone returned to the ocean after a relative died?
>> Karlynn
>> NC - USA
>> On 2/26/2024 12:34 PM, JOHN A CRAMER wrote:
>>
>> We went to the 2023 COA in Wilmington (great job, NC club!) and of course
>> we wandered around looking for shells. The collection of stuff from Kure
>> Beach has been sitting on my desk since then and I finally got to it
>> yesterday. I have a true limpet that really seemed out of place. Then I
>> looked at the drupe and saw the little thorn on the bottom of the lip!
>> What
>> have is definitely *Lottia pelta* and *Acanthina paucilirata. *The limpet
>> I have indeed collected in California (long ago) but the drupe, another
>> Californian, is new to me. There is not the slightest chance the shells
>> got
>> mixed into the Kure Beach stuff from other stuff here. They were there in
>> the sand at Kure Beach just waiting for me to sift them out.
>> OK, time for whoever has been salting the beach to 'fess up.
>>
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Physics
>> Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, GA
>> ebooks at
>> https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=John+Cramer
>> paperback books at
>> https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=john+a.+cramer&type=&pn=2
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