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The radula (US: / ˈ r æ dʒ ʊ l ə /; pl.: radulae or radulas) [1] is an anatomical structure used by mollusks for feeding, sometimes compared to a tongue. [2] It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the esophagus .
The buccal mass is the first part of the digestive system, and consists of the mouth and pharynx. The mouth includes a radula, and in most cases, also a pair of jaws. The pharynx can be very large, especially in carnivorous species. Many carnivorous species have developed a proboscis, containing the oral cavity, radula, and part of the ...
The radula of a gastropod is usually adapted to the food that a species eats. The simplest gastropods are the limpets and abalone, herbivores that use their hard radula to rasp at seaweeds on rocks. Many marine gastropods are burrowers, and have a siphon that extends out from the mantle edge.
Diverticulum – A pouch or hole, as the pouch containing the radula, or that containing the dart in helices. [1] Dormant – In a state of torpor or sleep. [1] Dorsal – The back. 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 ...
The radula is used to scrape microscopic algae off the substratum. The mouth cavity itself is lined with chitin and is associated with a pair of salivary glands. Two sacs open from the back of the mouth, one containing the radula, and the other containing a protrusible sensory subradular organ that is pressed against the substratum to taste for ...
Tympanotonus radula (Linnaeus, 1758) (junior synonym; misspelled genus) Tympanotonos fuscatus , the West African mud creeper , is a species of snail living in brackish water , a gastropod mollusk in the family Potamididae .
The radula is a chitinous ribbon-like structure containing rows of microscopic teeth. With this the snail scrapes at food, which is then transferred to the digestive tract. In a very quiet setting, a large land snail can be heard 'crunching' its food: the radula is tearing away at the surface of the food that the snail is eating.
80% of solenogaster species have a radula, while in others it is secondarily lost. The radula may bear one or more teeth per row; where there is more than one tooth, there is no central radular tooth. [3] The radula grows by dividing existing teeth in two, or by adding a new tooth at the centre of the radular row. [3]