This is an outstanding post. I really enjoyed reading it.
It was informative whilst striking the right balance of not going into too much technical detail which might put the casual reader off. Further it illustrated a your passion for the subject in a way that was highly engaging.
One of the best posts I have read in a while and I learned something new.
I always assumed the shells were there for protection from the beginning and had never imagined that digging might have something to do with their origin.
Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you! There's lots of interesting stuff like this out there but you are totally right: there's so much technical detail it just gets muddled up. Most of the education I do at work is just trying to take stuff like this and regurgitate it in a manner that makes sense to people with no science background.