Ronald Reagan was fond of telling the story of a boy who, on being shown a room full of horse dung, rejoiced, crying “There’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

Alas, not for poor Daniel Bennett, who is threatening suit against the University janitor who carelessly threw away Bennett’s  collection of giant lizard crap, perhaps the largest in the world.

“To some people it might have been just a bag of lizard shit,” he told Times Higher Education.

“But to me it represented seven years of painstaking work searching the rainforest with a team of reformed poachers to find the faeces of one of the world’s largest, rarest and most mysterious lizards.

“Its loss left me reeling and altered the course of my life forever.”

But before suing, perhaps Bennett should consider the doctrine of contributory negligence.  After all, had he labeled the unmarked bag in which his treasure was stored, perhaps as “GIANT LIZARD CRAP!”, he might feel like the boy in Reagan’s story today.

Via Lowering the Bar.

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