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Weathered whorls

Perhaps a single striped brown lipped snail (Cepaea nemoralis).

 

Their shells are so fascinating, the beautiful spiralling, the stripes, and the ridging and pitting. While IDing the snail, I learned about chirality in gastropods, which refers to the handedness of an asymmetrical snail shell. Most snails (over 90%) are "right-handed" in terms of the direction the coiling of the shell takes, so many similarities to humans. Mind = blown.

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Uploaded on August 25, 2012
Taken on August 11, 2012