Agh 2009 Artemia — laptop theft destroyed only copy of irreplaceable dataset

Agh et al. 2009 (S-0056) characterized six populations of the brine shrimp Artemia from Iranian salt lakes across 19 morphometric variables, demonstrating 85.9% correct classification to source population on morphology alone, and 100% separation of the bisexual Artemia urmiana (endemic to Urmia Lake) from the parthenogenetic populations.

The raw data — 19 morphometric variables across individuals from six Iranian populations — was lost when a laptop containing the dataset was stolen (T. Vines, pers. comm., 2026). No backup survived.

The Iranian populations cannot be re-sampled. Urmia Lake has lost approximately 88% of its surface area by the mid-2010s under upstream agricultural diversion and drought (S-0058). The pre-collapse salinity, temperature, and hydrological conditions under which the six populations were sampled cannot be reconstructed. A. urmiana has collapsed in its type locality. Re-sampling today produces measurements from a transformed ecosystem, not a replacement dataset.

This is the single-event variant of C-0018: a Tier 0 storage configuration (laptop with no off-device backup) intersected an ordinary criminal event and produced permanent loss of an irreplaceable scientific record. The case is developed in detail in §5.3.1 as a worked-example application of the M-0003 four-term liability formula.