Tucson, Day 5

For me and for now, the buying of fossils has ceased. I decided against buying a badly crushed Moroccan Prognathodon rostrom even though I talked the dealer down to nearly half of his original asking price. Most people decide not to buy something that they want because of a bad experience with people selling it or because they can't afford it, I decided not to buy it just because of the good experience I had with another set of dealers of Moroccan fossils. Until now, it'd been my experience that these dealers are shifty and fake as much of the vertebrate material as they find and that they were ignorant to nearly every aspect beyond the name and price of the specimens that they sell. I'll admit, I even got a little racist; generalizing all dealers from Morocco as generally hurtful to the scientific process. The people with Sahara Overland however are quite different. One frenchman with the company was quite knowledgeable and even knew Dr. Caldwell, read his papers, as well as just about all other literature on vertebrate paleontology in north Africa. In fact, I listened to a rather passionate tirade about how North American scientists are throwing away research opportunities buy not working with them.
The other people were also helpful; one Texan even flat out told me that I shouldn't buy any of his "complete" skulls, calling them "Ribosaurs." As a consiquence, Sahara Overland and it's sister company Doc Fossils, are the only Moroccans that I have or will do business with. When I bought the trilobites in Quartzite, it was from Sahara Overland. Yesterday I bought a section of Halisaurus (a mosasaur; I'm guessing on the genus based on its small size and strongly recurved teeth) pterygoid and a parietal and partial frontal from a (I think) Prognathodon. Tomorrow I'll buy an isopod from them which I'll send up to a friend in Canada who is studying them currently.
As a consiquence of my good experience, I have decided that my next great adventure will be to Morocco. Naturally, this trip may have to wait until after grad school, but I will not buy any large specimen until I've been to Morocco and had the chance to satiate my facination with fossil reptiles. Until then, the US is my hunting ground.
On another note, I've had some success in interviewing people about the rock and mineral trade. The consensus so far, among rock, mineral and fossil dealers alike, is that paleontologists have their heads up their collective ass with regards to policy for collecting on public lands.