Species
Gastropoda
IUCN
NCBI
EOL Text
The Class Gastropoda includes snails and slugs. Most gastropods have a single, usually spirally coiled shell, but the shell is lost or reduced in some groups. Many snails have an operculum, a plate that closes the gastropod's opening. Shelled gastropods have mantles, while those without shells have reduced to absent mantles.
Gastropods have a muscular foot used for creeping in most species. In some, the foot is modified for swimming or burrowing. Most gastropods have a well-developed head that includes eyes at the end of one to two pairs of tentacles.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2012, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
| Source | http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Gastropoda/ |
Foot aids underwater movement: water snail
The foot of water snails helps them move upside down beneath the water's surface by creating small ripples in the mucus-water interface.
"A UC San Diego engineer has revealed a new mode of propulsion based on how water snails create ripples of slime to crawl upside down beneath the surface.
"Eric Lauga, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering, recently published a paper…that explains how and why water snails can drag themselves across a fluid surface that they can't even grip.
"Based on Lauga's research, the secret is in the slime. The main finding of Lauga's research is that soft surfaces, such as the free surface of a pond or a lake, can be distorted by applying forces; these distortions can be exploited (by an animal, or in the lab) to generate propulsive forces and move. Some freshwater and marine snails crawl by 'hanging' from the water surface while secreting a trail of mucus. The snail's foot wrinkles into little rippling waves, which produces corresponding waves in the mucus layer that it secretes between the foot and the air. Parts of the mucus film get squeezed while other parts are stretched, creating a pressure that pushes the foot forward." (Jacobs School of Engineering News 2008)
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Learn more about this functional adaptation.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
| Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/d10f4fde40ee0db29a7a73c2c667a6fc |
Gastropods are found worldwide. Gastropods are by far the largest group of molluscs. Their 40,000 species comprise over 80% of living molluscs.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2012, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
| Source | http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Gastropoda/ |
Membrane reduces evaporation: land snail
A secreted mucus membrane across the opening of the shells of some land snails protects them from drying out by reducing evaporation.
"And certain land snails, particularly desert dwellers, seal themselves inside their shells to avoid desiccation in dry conditions, secreting a special membrane across their shells' opening that reduces evaporation; they can remain encased for years if need be until rain returns." (Shuker 2001:105)
Learn more about this functional adaptation.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | (c) 2008-2009 The Biomimicry Institute |
| Source | http://www.asknature.org/strategy/194ff2f524c11ff5eb1629bc42610859 |
Gastropods are distributed throughout the ocean, and on land, essentially everywhere except the most extreme polar regions. They occur as far north as Point Barrow, Alaska (USA) at 71°23′20″N (J. Nekola, personal communication, January 17, 2011) and as far south as the sub-Antarctic islands (Solem & van Bruggen, 1984). They do not occur on the Antarctic continent.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Soulanille, Elaine, Soulanille, Elaine, EOL Rapid Response Team |
| Source | http://eolspecies.lifedesks.org/pages/43551 |
Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) Stats
Specimen Records:74749
Specimens with Sequences:65859
Specimens with Barcodes:58246
Species:9734
Species With Barcodes:8557
Public Records:57430
Public Species:6993
Public BINs:10548
Other Physical Features: ectothermic ; bilateral symmetry
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | ©1995-2013, The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors |
| Source | http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Gastropoda/ |
Females often larger and more robust; dwarf males occur in some parasitic species, where females > 10 times larger than males; males may mature before females and have shorter lifespans. Occasionally foot slightly darker in females.
| License | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Fairbairn, 2013 |
| Source | http://datadryad.org/resource/doi:10.5061/dryad.n48cm |
Genomic DNA is available from 1 specimen with morphological vouchers housed at National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ |
| Rights holder/Author | Text can be freely copied and altered, as long as original author and source are properly acknowledged. |
| Source | http://www.oglf.org/catalog/details.php?id=T00151 |