Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...

Eleanor has an undergraduate degree in zoology from the University of Reading and a master’s in wildlife documentary production from the University of Salford. Eleanor has an undergraduate degree in ...

A 250-million-year-old fossil of a marine snail shell in pristine condition. The shell was one of the thousands examined in the study. Scale bar = 100 µm Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...