Everyone who was on the stream: Here's the fossilized whelk shell I was talking about.
Everyone else: Here is a fossilized whelk I happen to own.
My cousin collected it somewhere in Maryland. It's old but not dinosaur old, it's only partly fossilized. I don't know the exact species but Busycotypus rugosum is my best guess.
I thought it was whelks that had similar shells to cone snails, but I'm not as solid on my knowledge of gastropods. That one's really pretty though, I've always like the geometry of seashells
it's hard to tell from a photo in the White Void, but this is much larger than a cone snail; it's more in the conch size range
(approx 10 inches / 25cm long)
