There is a collection of hundreds of marine shells from French Polynesia that could be inventoried for Inaturalist. It was started around 50 years ago and contains potentially 300 different species. The problem is that the original collector has passed away and, although the vast majority of shell…

I would say: almost no value at all.

This is a sadly common occurrence. You can still upload casual observations with a note that French Polynesia is a likely location. I’d add that as the location, but vote no for “location is accurate.” Are you familiar at all with which species are rare or extinct? You can cherry pick interesting sh…

You don’t know where or when the shell was collected. But if you can ID the mollusks, you could make an e-book with the photos. Or you could lend the shells to someone who needs photos for a guidebook.

You also don’t know the dates it seems, so you won’t be able to upload those as not casual ones, plus yeah, you should create a new account for that collector if you will want to.

Two earlier threads, with comments from shell expert @susanhewitt https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/is-it-allowed-to-post-gastropods-observed-by-someone-else/12917/9 https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/seashells-and-more-seashells/19147/11

Thanks all for your insights, things are clearer now!

Leporicypraea mappa ssp. admirabilis Is a new iNaturalist visual record from this collection. It has no location and no collection date. GBIF/SMIB shows this species as eventual for French Polynesia. Do you confirm it is of almost no value? Also see: Menathais tuberosa

Given that the locality of L. m. admirabilis is restricted to the Tuamotu Islands, we could infer the shell is from French Polynesia (if it’s IDed correctly), but that’s still not very valuable. It’s circular reasoning. Without date and especially location, it is little more than a pretty shell.

Value of a large collection of shells without accurate location?

General

tiwane August 9, 2022, 11:02pm 3

iNat’s not really a place to upload collections you didn’t make (maybe GBIF would be better).

Fish Market Observations Marked Casual

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Value of a large collection of shells without accurate location?

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