A University has been forced to apologise to one of its graduate students after it accidentally threw away a bag of rare lizard excrement which had taken him five years to collect.

Daniel Bennett had been in the Philippines studying the rare butaan lizard, a close relative of the komodo dragon, as part of his PhD at Leeds University. Over half a decade he bagged and sent home 35kg of the reptile’s faeces, which he thought was being held safely by his department.

However, he was horrified to learn that the precious collection of dung had been thrown out by the university during a routine lab clearout.

Oh, that rare Filipino lizard poop. That must have been a shitty day. Badum-ching!

Via The Independent