Although the articles I read didn't indicate how much he paid, auctions for these animals apparently start in the $8 to $12 USD range and have been bid up to $138 USD (especially following the discovery that they were a new species).
(from the BBC)
Echinoids.nl-An elaborate collector's database for sea urchin tests.
An amateur or non-professional community is a fact of life if you work on fossils or on seashells.
These organizations can do a lot of good towards forwarding the study of these fields but have also met with criticism and concern. Much of it based on the creation of a collector's or retail market for fossils or shells or ? which are the bread and butter of paleontologists and malacologists.
How does creating a collector's market for studying sea urchins affect conservation?
How does it affect the study of these organisms?
What is the net input of non-professional collectors to the academic study of sea urchins?
I guess, we'll have to wait and see.
Its been getting quite common for exotic sea urchin species to be put up for sale on ebay and there is now a considerable collector's community/market for sea urchins, including this (among others on ebay and elsewhere):
Echinoids.nl-An elaborate collector's database for sea urchin tests.
An amateur or non-professional community is a fact of life if you work on fossils or on seashells.
These organizations can do a lot of good towards forwarding the study of these fields but have also met with criticism and concern. Much of it based on the creation of a collector's or retail market for fossils or shells or ? which are the bread and butter of paleontologists and malacologists.
How does creating a collector's market for studying sea urchins affect conservation?
How does it affect the study of these organisms?
What is the net input of non-professional collectors to the academic study of sea urchins?
I guess, we'll have to wait and see.
1 comment:
Interesting questions, Chris.
This also underlines how much biodiversity remains to be identified. I mean, if eBay is getting to things first, we know there's a lot of uncharted territory out there ...
Post a Comment