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Re: Speciation - how do you know?
Paul Crowley (Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk)
Sat, 19 Oct 96 21:37:15 GMT
In article <3268FA74.36C5@megafauna.com>
steve@megafauna.com "Stephen Barnard" writes:
> Wait a minute. Since when are shellfish an abrasive diet? I generally
> shell my oysters, clams, mussels, etc. before I eat them. So do, for
> example, sea otters. Do you think early hominids just munched them up
> whole?
If you had to detach them from rocks, using nothing but your
own hands and crude stones, and then break them open (again
with crude stones) and eat them raw, you'd be bound to find a
certain number of very hard shell splinters in your mouth.
If it was your regular diet, your teeth and gums would suffer
damage over time.
And how would you eat cockles without a pin? (These are like
small snails; they're a favourite food around London - you
know the song "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, O". Or
is that Dublin and sweet Molly Malone? I've forgotten.)
Paul.
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