A Chinese couple have opened up a museum of rare seashells on the beach of Beidaihe, a summer resort in the northern Hebei Province neighboring the nation's capital Beijing.

The clam-shaped museum is home to more than 3,000 rare seashells from all corners of the earth, all private collections of Jiang Hongbo and his wife, Yang Zhuolin.

In the 900-square-meter showroom are the world's rarest seashells the couple have collected over the past two decades, including huge deep-sea clams weighing approximately 100 kilograms, the smallest of South African conches that become visible only under a microscope, tritons, nautilus and other invaluable shells whose names are known only to experts.

"Some seashells were found by ourselves on the beach or at the local market," said Jiang, "Others were mailed to us at our request by friends from abroad -- some of them are avid collectors themselves."

Jiang, 47, was born in China's northernmost Heilongjiang Province. He started to work in Beidaihe in 1981 upon his graduation from the department of biology at Harbin Normal University.

(China Daily December 5, 2003)