That IS the one!! Good job!!  Material zones and groups, I thought of them as the same.  I have so much to learn!

But if the Cinema export heirarchy has no bearing on how the object appears, how could it change the object right after switching them?  The Poser filtered object was opened in Cinema and Tail 2 and Tail 8 were put in order in the list, that fixed it.

Riptide has been tried but always crashes my Cinema for some reason.  I can see if the object has reversed normals because the needles when the polygon is selected will face out if it's normal and face in if reversed.

So the problem is actually solved now.  I fixed it by switching the order in Cinema.