APROCEAN

 

tardibabe

It has been several months since I last posted some adorable little snails 🐌

Like squids, octopuses, slugs, clams, scallops, mussels and oysters, snails are part of a very diverse phylum named Mollusca! Although, snails aren’t bivalves like clams, mussels and oysters but are univalves belonging to the Gastropoda class which is the most diverse group of the whole mollusc phylum. The estimated total number of different species of gastropods is around 70 000, which is the three quarter of the 110 000 known species of molluscs!

In North America, there’s around 660 different species of freshwater snails which can be found in ponds, lakes, rivers and streams. Using their radula, a structure located in their mouth which resembles a grater, they feed on a variety of algae, cyanobacteria, microbes and detritus attached to rocks and plants. They can even feed on algae by floating upside down at the surface of water! They’re basically small spider-snails? 👀 😂

Snail’s calcareous shells are secreted by the mantle, a fleshy organ covering the visceral mass. Inside the shell can be found a heart, blood vessels, kidneys, a hepatopancreas (also called digestive gland), a stomach, some intestines and a reproductive system! Aren’t they closer to us than you imagined?

To move around, snails use their muscular foot which produces waves of contraction to push the animal forward and also secretes mucus so they can glide on different surfaces. You might also have seen in the videos that snails possess eyes which are at the base of their two tentacles 😄

Music by @__forms__ 🌿

Video taken with my iPhone mounted on my BA310E Motic microscope with an @ilabcam adapter 🔬 @moticamericas

Reference:
Brown, K. M., & Lydeard, C. (2010). Mollusca: gastropoda. In Ecology and classification of North American freshwater invertebrates (pp. 277-306). Academic Press.