Orientation of cephalopod shells in illustrations
Tradition. We need someone other than us old farts to take control
While I look at one of those models and automatically see it is upside down, I look at fossil cephs in a scientific publication and they seem upside down if they are shown rightside up.
Technically, in life position, the body chamber on planispiral coiled shells should be on the bottom(?), to show a partial shell in living position you would need to know how many more coils it had and guess at where the body chamber was (a very picky statement), and the illustration would end up in some weird orientation. But, if you look at the supposed ancestor of shelled cephalopods the aperture would be ventral and so actually shells should be drawn or illustrated pointing down, the body chamber would end up on top (or above the aperture). All very confusing, so I say stick with tradition (for an easy out).
Maybe the seller of those models was just trying to be scientifically correct and illustrate them the way fossil shells are illustrated, but then all the dinosaur models would have to be cut up and shown as they are in scientific publications, one bone at a time.
Tradition. We need someone other than us old farts to take control
While I look at one of those models and automatically see it is upside down, I look at fossil cephs in a scientific publication and they seem upside down if they are shown rightside up.
Technically, in life position, the body chamber on planispiral coiled shells should be on the bottom(?), to show a partial shell in living position you would need to know how many more coils it had and guess at where the body chamber was (a very picky statement), and the illustration would end up in some weird orientation. But, if you look at the supposed ancestor of shelled cephalopods the aperture would be ventral and so actually shells should be drawn or illustrated pointing down, the body chamber would end up on top (or above the aperture). All very confusing, so I say stick with tradition (for an easy out).
Maybe the seller of those models was just trying to be scientifically correct and illustrate them the way fossil shells are illustrated, but then all the dinosaur models would have to be cut up and shown as they are in scientific publications, one bone at a time.