I've been pondering the comment Fabio made earlier on cowrie maturing and
putting on the heavy teeth like structure.

I had always thought cowries grew their shells like conchs.  Just dissolving the
heavy
part and adding a whorl and growing 'teeth'.

I got this idea from finding fist size cowries without teeth.

Now I'm wondering why do shells mature and grow teeth years earlier.  Is this a need
for population ?

Some fish can change their sex when over populated in one or another.  It helps
balance
and promotes further offspring.

If a chemical sensing isn't detecting a 'scent' and therefore promotes self
maturity and
produces the 'sent'.  It might be a self defense mechanism that promotes the
species.

Otherwise how can one say that taking a large amount of a species produces small
adults.

The trigger for maturity must be environmental in nature.  Possibly it is the
food source changes
and that can trigger maturity.  Generally abundance of food means an expanded
population.

It would be nice to know the cause for the effect.

Martin

--
Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net

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