Another question:  Is there a maximum size and weight for a land
dwelling gastropod shell before the boneless nature of the animal is
unable to support it?
 
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA
 
Andrew K. Rindsberg wrote:
>
> According to a news item in American Paleontologist (v. 7, no. 1, p. 14;
> Feb. 1999), Frank Wesselingh and Edmund Gittenberger recently discovered a
> Miocene land snail from the Amazon region of Colombia. They reported
> specimens up to 25.6 cm long (about 10 inches). Unfortunately, they were
> not able to collect complete specimens. The full report is in Veliger (v.
> 42, p. 67; 1999), a journal that, unlike Doug Shelton's Malacological
> Expositor, does exist, although not in any of the local libraries.
>
> That's a pretty big snail, and I have to wonder how large its radula was.
> Here's a question for the gastropodologists: Is there any relationship
> between the size of a snail's shell and the size of its radula?
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
> Geological Survey of Alabama
> Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA