What A Load Of Old Crap

Whilst finding this story funny, I did feel sorry for the student involved.

Daniel Bennett is a Leeds University student. As part of his PhD field work Daniel collected 77 pounds of faeces from the very rare butaan lizard. The lizard excrement can only be found in the rain forests of the Philippines. It took the patient student seven years of diligent collecting to gather together that amount of samples, which were stored in an unmarked bag in his laboratory. But he was devastated on his return from a trip to the Philippines to find that the bag, and its contents, had been thrown out with the rubbish, during a clear-out of his lab.
"To some people it might have been just a bag of lizard sh**," he told Times Higher Education "But to me it represented seven years of painstaking work searching the rain forests with a team of reformed poachers to find the faeces of one of the worlds largest, rarest and most mysterious lizards." Daniel continued "Whether it was the largest collection of lizard sh** in the world is uncertain" he said. "But it certainly contained the only dietary sample from that little known species Varanus olivaceus and probably the most complete dietary record of any single population of animals in South East Asia. After Daniel lodged an official complaint about the loss, the University offered him £500 in compensation. Bennett however feels this is not enough and has vowed to "see them in court."
So, will the sh** hit the fan for the University? Has Daniel's life work gone down the pan? Or is the whole thing a load of crap? More on this story at our convenience!