I love looking at (and occasionally even getting to handle) fossil shells from historically important collections — i.e., shells that were collected by, and studied by, famous paleontologists. So I am passing on this link to a notice that went out on the Conch-L listserv a few days ago, about specimens from the mollusk collection of the famous naturalist Carl Linnaeus now being available for viewing online.
Link to the Conch-L discussion
Link to the Linnean Shells Collection page
Please note that identification errors — or at least anomalies from differences in generic assignments over time (Linnaeus did live in the 18th century, after all) — may pop up as you browse through the collections. For example, when I clicked on the link for “Murex asper,” expecting to see images of a variant of Pterynotus tricarinatus from the Eocene of France and England, photos of a cerithid turned up instead.
For some species, you can even see evidence of what I assume is damage to the specimens from storage / display methods of the past. An example can be seen by browsing through the images for “Murex clathratus.”
Overall, an incredibly fascinating window into the past…
The Fossil Murex Blog 