Hello All,

I wondered about something that sparked my curiosity tonight. Regarding shell geometries, gastropods essentially coil around an axis within itself. However, are there different points of axis within the same shell? I recently read that a particular land snail species had four points of axis and I thought that was a little strange. Could someone explain this in laymans terms? What made me think about all this was that I was handling one of my larger specimens of Conus, and wondered if anyone had attempted to make a 3-d model of what the shell would look like if it could be peeled away from itself (much like an orange) all in one piece. (What the piece would look like, and what it's shape would be, would it be an arc-shape? Does what I am asking even make sense?)

Any thoughts would be appreciated!!

Sincerely, Lyle Therriault



Lyle Therriault,
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