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Peoples of the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, North America, Africa and the Caribbean have used shells as money, including Monetaria moneta, the money cowrie [35] in preindustrial societies. However, these were not necessarily used for commercial transactions, but mainly as social status displays at important occasions, such as weddings. [ 36 ]
A molluscivore is a carnivorous animal that specialises in feeding on molluscs such as gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods and cephalopods.Known molluscivores include numerous predatory (and often cannibalistic) molluscs, (e.g.octopuses, murexes, decollate snails and oyster drills), arthropods such as crabs and firefly larvae, and, vertebrates such as fish, birds and mammals. [1]
Anti-predator adaptation in action: the kitefin shark (a–c) and the Atlantic wreckfish (d–f) attempt to prey on hagfishes. First, the predators approach their potential prey. Predators bite or try to swallow the hagfishes, but the hagfishes have already projected jets of slime (arrows) into the predators' mouths.
Some species evolved an external anatomy with textures and colours that mimicked surrounding sessile invertebrate animals (often their prey sponges or soft corals) to avoid predators with camouflage. Other nudibranchs, as seen especially well on Chromodoris quadricolor , have an intensely bright and contrasting colour pattern that makes them ...
Most animals prefer not to prey upon the black slugs because of the taste of its mucus and because this mucus can make them slippery and consequently difficult to capture; however, this slug does have some natural predators, including the hedgehog, badger, shrew, mole, mouse, frog, toad, snake, carnivorous beetle, and some birds. [21]
The byssal thread is also sometimes used by mussels as a defensive measure, to tether predatory molluscs, such as dog whelks, that invade mussel beds, immobilising them and thus starving them to death. In cooking, the byssus of the mussel is known as the "beard" and is removed during preparation, often after cooking when the mussel has opened.
The animals are only found in the wild in Antarctica, but they are increasingly threatened by the climate crisis. Emperor penguins rely on sea ice to form their breeding colonies, avoid predators ...
Morphologically, many mollusks (such as limpets and chitons) have low-profile, hydrodynamic shells. Types of substrate attachments include mussels' tethering byssal threads and glues, sea stars' thousands of suctioning tube feet, and isopods' hook-like appendages that help them hold on to intertidal kelps. Higher profile organisms, such as ...