MOUNT DESERT — The case of the missing scallop guts has been solved.

The tale unfolded Monday when a fisherman placed two buckets of specially preserved scallop guts in the back of a car with University of Maine license plates at a convenience store. It was the wrong car and the motorist drove away.

Andy Mays of Southwest Harbor had been collecting scallops for six months for a project by the University of Maine’s marine research facility. He’d gutted the bivalves, isolated different organs and preserved them in formaldehyde.

The Bangor Daily News says the motorist, a UMaine professor, later noticed the buckets and learned via social media that they were part of a valuable research project. She ended the mystery by posting online, “It is me. I have the scallop guts.”