Reverse drill holes: remarkable mistakes made by gastropod predators attacking Neogene bivalve prey

Abstract

Predation is a behavior that is commonly unsuccessful, but the cause of failure is often difficult to determine in the fossil record. Here, we report on gastropod drill holes in two Plio- and Miocene bivalve specimens from the Netherlands created from the inner side of the bivalve prey's shell, which we call reverse drill holes. These holes are unequivocally caused by failure of the gastropod drilling predators to make effective use of their chemoreception and mechanoreception sensory adaptations. We hypothesize that the diffuse nature of chemical cues emanating from dense aggregations of living prey could have confused foraging predators and stimulated them to initiate the drilling process on empty valves. Poor decision making due to hunger is an alternative hypothesis. These traces represent the first reported examples of reverse gastropod drill holes from the fossil record, and the first attributed to Naticidae. Compared to other types of failed predation (incomplete drill holes and drill holes in multiply-drilled specimens) in the two assemblages studied, reverse drill holes are rare (< 1% of drill holes). This result implies that the driller's sensory and decision-making processes were generally reliable at distinguishing dead from live prey.