My father loved malacology, since he was a child he used to keep the specimens that my grandfather, a fisherman, brought him.
Then, little by little he was building a nice shell collection. My first memories picking up shells in the beach go back to when I was only four years old.
Before being twenty years old, Carmen and I decided that we did not want to work
in the jobs we were studying for, so we did of our hobby a job, and until now,
we have been more than thirty years dedicated to this, travelling, providing
specimens to collectors, scientists and museums, even we have had the chance to
discover some new species for science. And in this we continue.
Thanks to our profession, we also have had the opportunity to meet many people
of different cultures and countries, and we want to refer specially to Morocco,
a country that we love deeply, and there are many, hundreds of thousands of
kilometres we have travelled around this country. And to its people we only can
dedicate words of gratefulness.
They are also many persons that have helped us, doing our work easier and
gratifying. We are deeply grateful to our friends: Domingo Beltrán, Enrique
Quintero, David Jiménez, Miguel Fernández, Javier Conde, Sebastián Torres ,
Alfonso Abad (due to his insistence we owe him our interest in landsnails) Juan
Nieto, Frank Swinnen, Juan Rutllant (for his kindness and generosity)...to
dealers, whose made us grow with their support: Enrique Kucera, José y Marcus
Coltro, Christa & Jens Hemmen, Tiziano Cossignani, Guido Poppe, Bruno Briano,
Tomas Honker, Paulo Granja, Gonçalo Rosas. We can not forget Alessandro Petronzi
and Claudio Pirazzini, for having created Shellauction, that so many
satisfactions has given us.
And finally, a special gratefulness to my father, José Ahuir Mayáns, for making
me love Nature.
