>    Question, being not in the "community" so to speak. However an avid >  collector, getting back into it after a long layoff (I have 10k >  cataloged shells)                         .......This thread does not >  mean that Strombus gigas is extinct, does it?  If its not it surely is >  very rare correct...or not.

gigas remains moderately common, though overfishing is a problem in many areas.  Although a fossil specimen is not as colorful as a modern one, it may be easier to convince a customs agent that you did not collect it alive than if you find a nice empty modern shell.

In the eastern U.S., most of the late Pleistocene (ice age) fossil shells are of living species.  Earlier in the Pleistocene, and especially before the mid-Pliocene (ca. 3.5 million), the proportion of extinct species is much higher.

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL  35487-0345 USA
    [log in to unmask]

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa

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