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The Fossil Record of Shell-Breaking Predation on Marine Bivalves and Gastropods

  • Chapter
Predator—Prey Interactions in the Fossil Record

Part of the book series: Topics in Geobiology ((TGBI,volume 20))

Abstract

Any treatment of durophagous (shell-breaking) predation on bivalves and gastropods through geologic time must address the molluscivore’s signature preserved in the victim’s skeleton. Pre-ingestive breakage or crushing is only one of four methods of molluscivory (Vermeij, 1987; Harper and Skelton, 1993), the others being whole-organism ingestion, insertion and extraction, and boring. Other authors in this volume treat the last behavior, whereas whole-organism ingestion, and insertion and extraction, however common, are unlikely to leave preservable evidence. Bivalve and gastropod ecologists and paleoecologists reconstruct predator-prey relationships based primarily on two, although not equally useful, categories of pre-ingestive breakage, namely lethal and sublethal (repaired) damage. Peeling crabs may leave incriminating serrated, helical fractures in whorls of high-spired gastropods (Bishop, 1975), but unfortunately most lethal fractures are far less diagnostic of the causal agent and often indistinguishable from abiotically induced, taphonomic agents of shell degradation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological and Marine Sciences, Rider University, 08648-3099, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA

    Richard R. Alexander

  2. Department of Zoology, North Carolina State University, 27695-7617, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

    Gregory P. Dietl

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  1. Richard R. Alexander
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  2. Gregory P. Dietl
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

    Patricia H. Kelley

  2. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

    Michał Kowalewski

  3. Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, USA

    Thor A. Hansen

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Alexander, R.R., Dietl, G.P. (2003). The Fossil Record of Shell-Breaking Predation on Marine Bivalves and Gastropods. In: Kelley, P.H., Kowalewski, M., Hansen, T.A. (eds) Predator—Prey Interactions in the Fossil Record. Topics in Geobiology, vol 20. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0161-9_7

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