University Faces Lawsuit Over Lizard-Poop Blunder

A British Ph.D. student who spent five years in jungles in the Philippines collecting excrement from rare Butaan lizards is suing his university after it accidentally threw away a 77-pound bag of lizard poop.

Daniel Bennett claims that when he returned from a stint of field work, his lab space had been cleared. “My personal effects had been carefully stowed in boxes, but there was no sign of my bag of lizard s—,” he says.

Bennett also claims that “photographs of my daughter, my girlfriend and my favorite lizards had been removed from the wall.”

Leeds University offered him $750 in compensation – about $10 per pound of poop – but Bennett rejected it and filed a lawsuit.

The poop has great scientific significance, Bennett explains. “The Butaan is so reclusive that all attempts to study it using methods that have proved suitable for the Komodo dragon and other large lizards have ended in total failure. My team and I studied the animals by searching the forest floor for their distinctive feces and using clues to estimate dietary patterns, population size and structure, and activity areas.”

Source: The Telegraph.
Image: Chester Zoo via Flickr.