Portal:Gastropods
The gastropods portalGastropods (/ˈɡæstrəpɒdz/), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (/ɡæsˈtrɒpədə/). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda is a diverse and highly successful class of mollusks within the phylum Mollusca. It contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. As of 2017[update], 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, and reproductive adaptations of gastropods vary significantly from one clade or group to another, so stating many generalities for all gastropods is difficult. The class Gastropoda has an extraordinary diversification of habitats. Representatives live in gardens, woodland, deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers, and lakes; in estuaries, mudflats, the rocky intertidal, the sandy subtidal, the abyssal depths of the oceans, including the hydrothermal vents, and numerous other ecological niches, including parasitic ones. Although the name "snail" can be, and often is, applied to all the members of this class, commonly this word means only those species with an external shell big enough that the soft parts can withdraw completely into it. Slugs are gastropods that have no shell or a very small, internal shell; semislugs are gastropods that have a shell that they can partially retreat into but not entirely. The marine shelled species of gastropods include species such as abalone, conches, periwinkles, whelks, and numerous other sea snails that produce seashells that are coiled in the adult stage—though in some, the coiling may not be very visible, for example in cowries. In a number of families of species, such as all the various limpets, the shell is coiled only in the larval stage, and is a simple conical structure after that. (Full article...) Selected articleEobania vermiculata, also known as Helix vermiculata, common name the "chocolate-band snail" is a species of large, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Helicidae, the true snails or typical snails. This species of large land snail is common in the Mediterranean area, where it is found from eastern Spain to the Crimea. It has been introduced into Australia. It lives in a broad variety of habitats, usually in dry vegetation, mainly in the vicinity of the coast, and also in agricultural crops. In northern Greece, copulation in this species takes place after the first rainfalls in autumn. These snails create and use love darts as part of their mating behavior. (Read more...) Selected biographyErnst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (February 16, 1834 – August 9, 1919), also written von Haeckel, was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"), claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' entire evolutionary development, or phylogeny. Haeckel coined many now ubiquitous terms including "anthropogeny", "phylum", "phylogeny", "ecology". He proposed the kingdom Protista in 1866. His chief interests lay in evolution and life development processes in general, including development of nonrandom form, which culminated in his beautifully illustrated book Kunstformen der Natur (Art forms of nature), which includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures, including the shells of a variety of marine gastropods. (Read more...) Did you know?
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Selected imageAn undescribed species of deepwater nudibranch from Davidson Seamount, Pacific Ocean. Large numbers of species of gastropods have not yet been described and named. Although great efforts have been made, and there has been considerable progress in research on gastropods in the last decade and also in 2010, knowledge on gastropods in general and on the overall diversity of molluscs is still extremely incomplete. Lists of gastropods
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Related portalsSubcategoriesCategories about gastropods: Request to editors: please do not create any more categories of gastropods by country. Instead create list articles, article with a list of the marine or non-marine gastropods of whichever country or area you are interested in. We would also like to empty and delete the two remaining country categories we have, adding that information to list articles instead. Thank you. Things to do
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