Abstract
MOST extant snails (Gastropoda) are characterised by dextral (right-handed) coiling of the shell. Sinistral (left-handed) and planispiral (bilaterally symmetrical) coiling are uncommon among gastropods, particularly in the sea1. The preponderance of one type of asymmetry over another contrasts with the approximately equal numbers of right-handed and left-handed stocks of conispirally coiled fossil nautiloid and ammonoid cephalopods2,3, and the roughly equal occurrence of inequivalve bivalves in which either the left or the right valve is larger4.
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VERMEIJ, G. Evolution and distribution of left-handed and planispiral coiling in snails. Nature 254, 419–420 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/254419a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/254419a0
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