Predation through geological time: evidence from gastropod shell repair.

Warm-water marine gastropods from soft-bottom habitats show an increase in the incidence of breakage-resistant shell characteristics over geological time. The hypothesis that breakage became a more important component of selection in the middle of the Mesozoic Era is supported by the finding that frequencies of breakage-induced shell repair increased from the Pennsylvanian and Triassic periods to the Cretaceous, Miocene, and Recent.