FOS 034
Whelk
Sinistrofulgur contrarius
(?Busycon contrarium)
Location: Virginia-Florida
Age: Pliocene
Continuing with the mass posting to celebrate one year of the Sholesonian, we have this interesting fossil snail shell specimen. Normally I try not to pick up any fossils that don't have location data attached with them, they lose their scientific importance without it, but this one has an interesting feature that makes it a nice new addition to the Fossil Collection.
If you take a look at the photograph of the shell you should see a lot of cracks in the shell. At first glance you may think, as did I, that these are just stress fractures from it breaking over time. But as it turns out these are actually quite different. These cracks were caused by another animal that was boring into the shell. Whether the snail was alive or deceased when this was happening isn't quite clear, but either is a possibility. The two possible culprits for doing this is either Cliona (a boring sponge) or a bryozoa (a moss animal).
As for the shell itself, I've been told that it belongs to the genus Sinistrofulgur, which through some looking up seems to be now a part of Busycon. It's most likely Pliocene in age, meaning that this is a relatively recent fossil, only a few million years old. These snails are equipped to drill holes into their prey, usually bivalves, and eat the insides if they are successful. This particular shell is left-handed. And yes while snails don't have hands they can be either right or left handed. To figure out which a snail is hold it up with the point of the spiral up and whichever side the opening is on decides which-handed it is. If you mentally rotate the picture below 90 degrees clockwise you will see it.
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