A Nanaimo man91裸聊视频檚 140,000-specimen mollusk collection has found a new home at a B.C. biodiversity museum.
Bill Merilees, a retired B.C. Parks regional information officer, collected mollusk shells ranging from large clams to tiny snails found on the B.C. shorelines for nearly 50 years. In that time he amassed and catalogued more than 140,000 shells, and possibly the most extensive collection of micro mollusks ever gathered from B.C.91裸聊视频檚 coast.
Merilees91裸聊视频檚 interest in mollusks was sparked when he was five years old by his father who gave him a clam shell, but his hobby of collecting shells took off after he moved to Nanaimo in 1978.
91裸聊视频淚 really had a glorious opportunity, because my job with B.C. Parks took me up and down the Island, all over the place91裸聊视频�91裸聊视频� he said. 91裸聊视频淚91裸聊视频檇 have this spoon and I91裸聊视频檇 find a nice rock at low tide and scrape all the slime and goop off it, put it into a plastic bag and bring it home and put it in [my wife91裸聊视频檚] freezer, which of course, wasn91裸聊视频檛 very popular.91裸聊视频�
Merilees would thaw the samples, screen out shells between one and five millimetres in size and then ,with a pair of watchmaker91裸聊视频檚 forceps, sit for hours peering through a microscope and picking out the 91裸聊视频渕icro mollusks91裸聊视频� which he91裸聊视频檇 preserve in vials.
91裸聊视频淭his came about in an interesting way,91裸聊视频� Merilees said. 91裸聊视频淲hat the Canadian Wildlife Service were trying to find out was what some of our shorebirds are feeding on. They91裸聊视频檇 analyze the stomach [contents], but they had nothing to identify the little snails they found, so I started gravitating to getting smaller, smaller and finally ended up getting down to what I call micro mollusks.91裸聊视频�
Merilees gathered specimens from Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii and Washington state, accompanied at times by his friend, marine biologist Rick Harbo.
Merilees91裸聊视频檚 collection, stored in wooden cabinets he built, fills a bedroom in his Departure Bay-area home. Vials containing micro mollusks fill just one of dozens of cabinet drawers, yet account for about 126,000 of the estimated 140,000-specimen collection. Each sample is accompanied by particulars, such as date, time, location, tide conditions, surface type (rock or sand), size of scraping, number of species and how many of each were found. He also used methods to preserve specimen DNA, which might one day help further species identification efforts.
91裸聊视频淧eople would say, 91裸聊视频榶ou silly bugger,91裸聊视频� and I91裸聊视频檇 say, 91裸聊视频榶ou91裸聊视频檙e quite right, I91裸聊视频檓 bloody crazy, absolutely stupid,91裸聊视频� but the fact is nobody in B.C. has ever done anything quite like this91裸聊视频�91裸聊视频� he said. 91裸聊视频淲hat you91裸聊视频檝e got here is a snapshot in time of a particular day, particular tide, season 91裸聊视频� You could go back to these areas in the future and you can do a comparison and no one has ever, to my knowledge, in British Columbia or even on the west coast of North America, done something quite like that.91裸聊视频�
Merilees said some of his specimens are new to the field of mollusk study, but haven91裸聊视频檛 been formally recognized. Samples were sent to James Hamilton McLean, a malacologist and former curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who included some of them in a 2,000-page monograph he compiled. Unfortunately McLean died in 2016 before it could be published.
Merilees, now 81, stopped making collection trips in 2020, but he hopes his donation, bound for the University of British Columbia91裸聊视频檚 Beaty Biodiversity Museum, will become a learning resource for future biology students.
Sheila Byers, a marine biologist and former interpreter for the Beaty museum, and Colin MacLeod, a zoologist with UBC91裸聊视频檚 Biodiversity Research Centre and museum curatorial assistant, spent Tuesday, July 20, packing up Merilees91裸聊视频檚 collection. It will be stored in isolation for three weeks to prevent any potential insect infestation from escaping into the museum before it is catalogued into the museum91裸聊视频檚 online database and some of it will be put on display.
Merilees91裸聊视频檚 collection, the two scientists said, is important for making comparisons between species in collection locations 50 years ago versus today and to help people understand the huge diversity of local marine life.
91裸聊视频淎 lot of people don91裸聊视频檛 realize how beautiful and diverse local species can be, so I think this collection gives a huge opportunity to understand their own marine life by this hugely diverse collection,91裸聊视频� Byers said.
She said Merilees did an 91裸聊视频渁mazing job91裸聊视频� of record-keeping.
91裸聊视频淎nother key thing is just the amazing amount of data Bill has associated with these specimens,91裸聊视频� MacLeod said. 91裸聊视频淚n terms of climate change or any large-scale change to the ocean, having a date of collection associated means that we can go back to that site and collect again and maybe that species will have disappeared as ranges shift, caused by climate change or harvesting 91裸聊视频� so just having these reference points back in time are invaluable for museums and also for conservation biologists who want to record how things are changing.91裸聊视频�
Merilees91裸聊视频檚 wish for his collection to be become a teaching resource will also be realized.
91裸聊视频淭here91裸聊视频檚 so many interesting species in here 91裸聊视频� some not described 91裸聊视频� that it91裸聊视频檚 going to make really cool research projects for a lot of students at UBC too,91裸聊视频� Byers said.
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