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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 .
In terrestrial pulmonate gastropods, eye spots are present at the tips of the tentacles in the Stylommatophora or at the base of the tentacles in the Basommatophora.These eye spots range from simple ocelli that cannot project an image (simply distinguishing light and dark), to more complex pit and even lens eyes. [6]
Muscles that control the radula are shown in brown. The surface of the radula ribbon, with numerous teeth, is shown as a zig-zag line. The odontophore is part of the feeding mechanism in molluscs. It is the cartilage which underlies and supports the radula, a ribbon of teeth. [1] The radula is found in every class of molluscs except for the ...
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.
The subradular organ is a sensory organ below the grinding mouthparts of some molluscs, specifically the chitons. [1] This organ is involved in chemoreception - that is, in judging the nature of food or the substratum. In this sense, it can be considered a 'smell' or 'taste' organ; food is sensed before each stroke of the radula. [1]
Scallops have up to 100 simple eyes. The molluscs have the widest variety of eye morphologies of any phylum, [1] and a large degree of variation in their function. Cephalopods such as octopus, squid, and cuttlefish have eyes as complex as those of vertebrates, while scallops have up to 100 simple eyes.
The radula in this species is longer than the shell itself. It contains 1,920 teeth in 160 rows of 12 teeth each. Patella vulgata is found attached to firm substrates from the high shore to the edge of the sublittoral zone, although it predominates in areas of wave action. Its shell is conical, up to around 6 cm long, and lacks defined chirality.