Animalscaretips
- What is the role of molluscs?
- What are mollusc shells used for?
- What is the economic importance of mollusk?
- What best describes a mollusk?
- What type of body cavity do mollusks have?
- What is the function of the crystalline style in bivalves?
- What is the function of the valves of a bivalve?
- What is the importance of molluscs in the life of Digenetic trematodes?
- What type of creature is a gastropod?
- What is the life cycle of a mollusk?
- How do mollusks move?
- What eats a mollusk?
- What do gastropods do?
- How are gastropods important to humans?
- How are gastropods good for the environment?
What is the role of molluscs?
Mollusks are important in a variety of ways; they are used as food, for decoration, in jewelry, and in scientific studies. They are even used as roadbed material and in vitamin supplements.
What are mollusc shells used for?
In nature, mollusk shells have a role in protecting the soft body of the mollusk from predators and from the external environment, and the shells consist mainly of calcium carbonate and small amounts of organic matrices.
What is the economic importance of mollusk?
Many gastropods, bivalves, and cephalopods are a source of food for many cultures and therefore play an important role in the fishing industries of many countries. In addition to their economic value as food, mollusks are also used to make jewelry the most notable and valuable example of which is pearl jewelry.
What best describes a mollusk?
mollusk, also spelled mollusc, any soft-bodied invertebrate of the phylum Mollusca, usually wholly or partly enclosed in a calcium carbonate shell secreted by a soft mantle covering the body.
What type of body cavity do mollusks have?
But molluscs have developed a true coelom, an internal body cavity enclosed by mesodermal membranes. The coelom in molluscs, however, is strangely reduced to a small space around the heart, sometimes called a hemocoel.
What is the function of the crystalline style in bivalves?
For the digestion of various carbohydrates, the crystalline style, a transparent rod composed in part of glycoside hydrolases, is known to be a key component of digestion in the stomach of many snails and marine bivalves.
What is the function of the valves of a bivalve?
two shelly valves. two adductor muscles (reduced to one in some species) that hold the shell tightly closed when they contract. an elastic ligament that springs the shell open when the muscles relax. a hinge with a series of interlocking teeth that keep the valves aligned.
What is the importance of molluscs in the life of Digenetic trematodes?
In freshwater habitats molluscs may serve as intermediate hosts for parasites such as digenetic trematodes and are an integral part of the Schistosomiasis contagion that infects millions in the tropical regions of the world.
What type of creature is a gastropod?
The Class Gastropoda (in Phylum Mollusca) includes the groups pertaining to snails and slugs. The majority of gastropods have a single, usually spirally, coiled shell into which the body can be withdrawn. The shell of these creatures is often what is recovered in a fossil dig.
What is the life cycle of a mollusk?
Like many invertebrates, the mollusk life cycle includes one or more juvenile or larval stages that are very different from the adult form of the animal. Both mollusks and annelids develop through a larval stage called a trochophore larva.
How do mollusks move?
Most mollusks move with a muscular structure called a foot. The feet of different kinds of mollusks are adapted for different uses, like crawling, digging, or catching prey. ... These are mollusks like snails and slugs that have just one shell or no shell at all. Gastropods creep along on their broad foot.
What eats a mollusk?
Vertebrate predators of snails and slugs include shrews, mice, squirrels, and other small mammals; salamanders, toads and turtles, including the uncommon Blandings Turtle Emydoidea blandingii; and birds, especially ground-foragers such as thrushes, grouse, blackbirds, and wild turkey.
What do gastropods do?
Some gastropods are scavengers, feeding on dead plant or animal matter; others are predators; some are herbivores, feeding on algae or plant material; and a few species are external or internal parasites of other invertebrates.
How are gastropods important to humans?
Most gastropods, however, are useful to humans in that they help decompose dead plants and animals into substances that can be used by plants to manufacture new organic compounds.
How are gastropods good for the environment?
they are abundant and diverse and play important roles in ecosystem function by serving as prey for many other spe- cies and promoting the decomposition of dead plant matter and the subse- quent recycling of nutrients.
