Ross Mayhew wrote:
>
> The idea has been floated to nominate "the most beautiful species" in
> each family.  Sounds good in theory, but just wouldn't work - no two
> people have identical concepts of what is "beautiful" - so achiveing
> anything approaching a general concensus would be COMPLETELY impossible
 
snip
 
Some of the cones and volutes would definately top the list but in my
humble opinion some of the most spectacular shells in terms of
architecture and symetry are the ones found off the coast of Japan and
Thailand. I don't have any reference books to name them but they are
similar and maybe related to the murex family but much more detailed.
Michael, Sunrise, FL