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> 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
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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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