> ----------
> From:         Ross Mayhew[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:         donderdag 14 januari 1999 18:54
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      But, seriously......(Sinistal-related)
>
> OK- we've all had our little laughs- i'm surprised Art didn't drag his
> Flying Pigs into the melee!  The suggestion was made that most of the
> lefties were the same species, with a good deal of variation, but some
> European cone spp were also sinistral, so that is not a total
> explanation.  A more pertinant question might be why the vast majority
> of present-day spp  in nearly all families are dextral- is there some
> advantage to this state?   If so, why are so many land-snails sinistral,
> and why has the Triphoriidae family been so successful, if
> left-handedness confers some sort of disadvantage?  Further, is there
> more diversity in "handedness" in other families in the fossil record,
> and not just Conidae?   Does natural selection seem to be playing the
> predominant role here, or are we simply living in a period where
> dextrality just happens to predominate? (or is there any way of
> gathering evidence to support either circumstance, or is it likely to to
> remain one of the many things we are unlikely to ever know??)
>
> Any Bona-fide info or speculations??,
>
> Ross
> P.S.  Would people stop picking on Helmut (at least in pubic, ie!).
> After all, he is by his own admission, his own species...
>
I never heard of an European sinistral Conus, nor recent or fossil. May be
you can give me a name or a refence on this subject. There is a sinistral
Terebra in the Pliocene of the North Sea basin, Terebra inversa, which also
extinct.
M.C. Cadee, The Netherlands