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The Gastropods Phylum Mollusca

The gastropods

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Page 2: The gastropods

Class Gastropoda – “Stomach Foot”

-Extremely diverse and numerous group of animals-Many are snails, but there are species without shells or without coiled shells

Page 4: The gastropods

Anatomy• Most have a spiraling shell

surrounding a soft bodied animal

• Well defined head, ganglia, no hearing

• Excellent sense of smell/taste

• Gills to take oxygen from water

• Trap door (operculum) to protect animal when withdrawn in its shell

• Mantle secretes the shell• Bilateral symmetry

Page 5: The gastropods

Habitat• Benthic– Motile– Epifauna –live on

seafloor– Have adapted to

almost every marine environment in the world (i.e., rocks, sand, mud, etc.)

Page 6: The gastropods

Feeding-Most are scavengers using radula to scrape algae off rocks or decaying animal matter from the bottom-Some are predators

Ex: cone snailhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcBmMPJrrKk

Page 7: The gastropods

Feeding cont.Some of predatory snails feed by drilling a hole in another MolluskExamples: moon snail, oyster drill