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The gastropod shell is part of the body of many gastropods, including snails, a kind of mollusc. The shell is an exoskeleton , which protects from predators, mechanical damage, and dehydration, but also serves for muscle attachment and calcium storage.
The shell of Semicassis pyrum has a large parietal callus, at the top in this image The shell of Cymatium pileare has a narrow parietal callus around the surface of the aperture nearest the columella, on the left of the shell opening as it is shown here. A parietal callus is a feature of the shell anatomy of some groups of snails, i.e. gastropods.
Shell of marine snail Lunella torquata with the calcareous operculum in place Gastropod shell of the freshwater snail Viviparus contectus with corneous operculum in place. An operculum (Latin for 'cover, covering'; pl. opercula or operculums) is a corneous or calcareous anatomical structure like a trapdoor that exists in many (but not all) groups of sea snails and freshwater snails, and also ...
Gastropods whose shells have varices are primarily families and species within the taxonomic groups Littorinimorpha and Neogastropoda. The varix is a thickened axial ridge, a subcylindrical protrusion, in the shell which exists in some families of marine gastropods. It is an important shell character in generic classification.
In gastropods the opposite to the aperture. [1] Ectocone – The outer cusp on the teeth of the radula. [1] Edentulous – Without teeth or folds, as the aperture in some gastropods. [1] Efferent – Carrying out. [1] Elliptical – With an oval form. [1] Elongated – Drawn out, as the spire of a shell. [1] Emarginate – Bluntly notched. [1]
In very large gastropods such as the queen conch (Aliger gigas) once the columellar muscles are cut with a knife, the soft parts of the animal fall out of the shell easily. Conch fishermen in the Caribbean Sea break a small hole in the spire of the shell, cut the columellar muscles, and harvest the live meat of this species. Often the fishermen ...
In some gastropod groups (such as the Architectonicidae), the teleoconch whorls spiral in the opposite direction to the protoconch. In those cases, the shell is called heterostrophic. In species which have a veliger or swimming larval stage which hatches out of egg capsules, there are two parts to the protoconch. The first part of the ...
A spire is a part of the coiled shell of molluscs. The spire consists of all of the whorls except for the body whorl. Each spire whorl represents a rotation of 360°. A spire is part of the shell of a snail, a gastropod mollusc, a gastropod shell, and also the whorls of the shell in ammonites, which are fossil shelled cephalopods.