Andy,
I probably read about it here on ConchL, but wasn't there cases of
giantism caused by parasitic attacks on the gonads of a mollusk?  That
would leave a fossil record, albeit ambiguous.

Allen Aigen  NYC
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On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:31:26 -0500 Andy Rindsberg
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Harry and Andrew,
>
> I take it that parasites of marine organisms are not readily
> transferred to
> humans. Can you tell that a marine bivalve or gastropod is infected
> with
> parasites just by looking at it, or is this a microscopic thingy?
>
> > I feel I've trespassed into your (evolutionary) turf here.  Maybe
> I need a
> little editing here.
>
> Not at all! Soft tissues of mollusks are rarely preserved in the
> fossil
> record, unless you count ligamental and similar tissue as 'soft'.
> We've
> discussed preservation of ligaments on this listserver before. I
> would like
> to know whether parasitic infections affect the shell in ways that
> could be
> recognized in fossils, the way that drillholes and some other signs
> of
> predation (and commensalism) are.
>
> Andy
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
> Geological Survey of Alabama
>
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