gastropod

/gas"treuh pod'/, n.

1. any mollusk of the class Gastropoda, comprising the snails, whelks, slugs, etc.

adj.

2. Also, gastropodous /ga strop"euh deuhs/. belonging or pertaining to the gastropods.

[1820-30; < NL Gast(e)ropoda a class of mollusks. See GASTRO-, -POD]

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Any member of the class Gastropoda, the largest group of mollusks, including about 65,000 species.

Gastropods, which include the snails, conchs, whelks, limpets, periwinkles, abalones, slugs, and sea slugs (see nudibranch), are found worldwide, in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. Gastropods typically have a large foot with a flat sole for crawling, a single coiled shell that covers the soft body, and a head that bears a pair of eyes and tentacles. However, they are so diverse that some forms lack shells, while animals in one genus have shells with two halves, like bivalves. Most feed by using a radula, a ribbon of small horny teeth that tear food into pieces. They may be herbivores, carnivores, predators, parasites, or filter feeders of plankton and detritus.

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▪ class of mollusks

Introduction

      any member of more than 65,000 animal species belonging to the class Gastropoda, the largest group in the phylum Mollusca. The class is made up of the snails (snail), which have a shell into which the animal can generally withdraw, and the slugs (slug)—snails whose shells have been reduced to an internal fragment or completely lost in the course of evolution.

      Gastropods are among the few groups of animals to have become successful in all three major habitats: the ocean, fresh waters, and land. A few gastropod types (such as conch, abalone, limpets, and whelks) are used as food, and several different species may be used in the preparation of escargot. Very few gastropod species transmit animal diseases; however, the flukes that cause human schistosomiasis use gastropods as intermediate hosts. The shells of some species are used as ornaments or in making jewelry. Some gastropods are scavengers, feeding on dead plant or animal matter; others are predators; some are herbivores, feeding on algae or plant material; and a few species are external or internal parasites of other invertebrates.

General features

Size range and diversity of structure

      Some adult marine snails (Homalogyra) and forest-litter snails (Stenopylis, Punctum) are less than one millimetre (0.04 inch) in diameter. At the other extreme, the largest land snail, the African Achatina achatina, forms a shell that is almost 20 centimetres (eight inches) long. The largest freshwater snails, Pomacea from South America, reach nearly 10 centimetres in diameter, and the largest marine snail, the Australian Syrinx aruanus (baler), occasionally grows to more than 0.6 metre (two feet). The longest snail probably is Parenteroxenos doglieli, which lives as a parasite in the body cavity of a sea cucumber: it grows to be almost 130 centimetres (50 inches) in length, although it is only 0.5 centimetre (0.2 inch) in diameter. Most snails are much smaller; probably 90 percent of all adult snails are less than one inch in maximum dimension.

      Snails show a tremendous variety of shapes, based primarily upon the logarithmic spiral. They can be coiled flatly in one plane, as in Planorbis; become globose with the whorls increasing rapidly in size, as in Pomacea; have the whorls become elongate and rapidly larger, as in Conus and Scaphella; have a few flatly coiled whorls that massively increase in width, as in Haliotis; become elongated and spike-shaped, as in Turritella; or be humped to form a limpet shape, as in Fissurella. Often a number of such shell shapes can be found among species within a single family, but such marine families as the Terebridae, Conidae, and Cypraeidae are conservative in shape. Shells of different species vary markedly in thickness, and those of many species bear conspicuous spines and ridges, probably as an evolutionary adaptation to predation.

      Traditionally, the three main gastropod groups are the prosobranchs (prosobranch) (subclass Prosobranchia), the opisthobranchs (opisthobranch) (subclass Opisthobranchia), and the pulmonates (pulmonate) (subclass Pulmonata); however, many authorities classify the pulmonates as a subgroup within subclass Opisthobranchia. The prosobranchs generally secrete a substantial shell into which the animal can withdraw. The operculum, an often calcified disk situated on the rear part of the foot, fills the shell aperture when the snail is inside the shell, protecting the animal against predation and desiccation. Opisthobranchs are marine species that often have a reduced or absent shell and very colourful bodies. The pulmonates are snails and slugs that lack an operculum but show complex and highly varied body structures. They have a “lung” or pulmonary cavity that serves also as a water reservoir. Gastropods have a fossil record that extends back over 500 million years.

Distribution and abundance

      Of the more than 65,000 species, about 30,000 are marine, 5,000 live in fresh water, and 30,000 live on land. In general, oceanic gastropods are most diverse in number of species and in variety of shell structures in tropical waters; several hundred species (each represented by a small number of individuals) can be found in a single coral reef habitat. This is in contrast to the Arctic or subarctic coasts, where the few species present are represented by many individuals. A number of deep-sea species are known, and a significant snail fauna is associated with hydrothermal vents. Most marine species have large ranges.

      Freshwater snails (freshwater snail) are common in ponds, streams, marshes, and lakes. Usually only a few species are found at one place, but each species will have a rather wide range. Most species are common and feed on algae or dead plant matter. In a few relatively old river systems and lakes—in particular, Baikal in Siberia, Titicaca in South America, Ohrid in Macedonia, the Mekong basin in Southeast Asia, and the African Rift lakes—extensive and complex radiations of snails have occurred in recent geologic time, producing a large number of species.

      Land snails (land snail) are marginally, but very successfully, terrestrial. When actively moving, they continuously lose water. During periods when water is unavailable, they retreat into their shells and remain inactive until conditions improve. They hibernate during winter periods, when water is locked into snow or ice, and estivate during periods of summer drought. Land snails have been found above the snow line; species of Vitrina crawl on snowbanks in Alpine meadows. Other species inhabit barren deserts where they must remain inactive for years between rains.

      Fewer than 10 species live in the same area together across most of North America. On the other hand, in such favourable areas as New Zealand, Jamaica, northeastern India, and the wet forests of Queensland (Australia) 30 to 40 different species can be found together. In some parts of western Europe 20 species can be found together. Only one or two species are found in many desert regions, and they have dramatic feeding specializations.

      The local abundance of snails and slugs can be spectacular. Millions of some brackish-water and freshwater species can live on small mud flats. An acre of British farmland may hold 250,000 slugs, and a Panamanian montane forest was estimated to have 7,500,000 land snails per acre. Despite this abundance, snails and slugs often pass unobserved. Land and freshwater species often stay hidden during the day and are active at night. Most marine species as well are nocturnal, and the shells of many of these species are so heavily covered with algae and other encrusting organisms that they may be mistaken for bits of rock.

Importance to humans

      From earliest times, humans have used many snail species as food. Periwinkles (Littorina) in Europe and South Africa, queen conchs (Strombus gigas) in the West Indies, abalones (Haliotis) in California and Japan, and turban shells (turban shell) (Turbo) in the Pacific are the most frequently eaten marine snails. Occasionally limpets and whelks are used for food, but they are more commonly used as fish bait. Freshwater snails rarely are eaten. Land snails of the family Helicidae have been eaten in the Middle East and Europe since prehistoric times. Today many tons of the European edible snails Helix aspersa and H. pomatia (the most common species used to prepare escargot) are raised on snail farms or collected wild. Several species of Otala and Eobania from Morocco and Algeria are exported for food.

      In some places, introductions of Achatina and Helix have resulted in damage to crops and gardens by these rapidly multiplying snails (pest). On the other hand, habitat degradation, the introduction of predatory rats and land snails, and shell collecting by humans have caused the extinction of about 50 percent of all Achatinella species in Hawaii. Eighteen of the remaining 19 native species have been pushed to the brink of extinction.

      California orange groves are plagued by H. aspersa. Many slugs accidentally introduced from Europe to both the West Coastal and the Eastern to Midwestern United States are a continual nuisance in home gardens. Freshwater snails of the family Bythinidae sometimes become so numerous that they clog the filter systems of pumping stations.

      Shells of certain snails are highly prized by collectors. The operculum of some Turbo species is used in making earrings; cameos are cut from the shell of the Red Sea snail Cassis rufa. Abalone shells are used in many cultures for decorative purposes; the shell of the golden cowrie (Cypraea aurantium) served at one time as a badge of a chief in Fiji. Strings of shells have been used as money.

      Serious medical problems are caused by the few freshwater snails (Pomatiopsis, Bulinus, Biomphalaria) that serve as intermediate hosts for flatworms that parasitize (parasitism) humans. schistosomiasis is a disease caused by minute blood flukes (blood fluke) (schistosomes). Both snails and flukes are most common in areas where fields are irrigated. Schistosomes also parasitize birds and mammals. A skin rash called swimmer's itch results from bird schistosomes trying, only partly successfully, to penetrate human skin. They die in the upper skin layers, and their decomposition causes local infection. Other health problems are caused by several snails and slugs (e.g., Bradybaena, Angustipes, Veronicella) that serve as intermediate hosts for the rat lungworm. If an infected land snail or slug is inadvertently chopped up in a salad and eaten, the worm can migrate to the brain and encyst, causing moderate to severe damage.

      Most gastropods, however, are useful to humans in that they help decompose dead plants and animals into substances that can be used by plants to manufacture new organic compounds. In both field and forest, as in ponds, rivers, and oceans, gastropods are an important part of the decomposer community, and some are significant predators.

Natural history

      The colonization of freshwater and terrestrial habitats by gastropods is due to the plasticity of their body and organ systems. Most major groups of organisms primarily inhabit only one of the three great biospheres (ocean, fresh water, or land); the gastropods are well represented in all three.

Reproduction and life cycles

      Gastropods originated in the oceans, and relics of this fact are preserved in the early life history of freshwater and land species. Only in the most primitive prosobranchs (such as abalone) are the gametes released into the water for fertilization to take place outside the female. The fertilized egg hatches into a free-swimming form ( trochophore larva). Upon the expansion of the ciliary girdle of the trochophore larva into large, heavily ciliated lobes (vela), the larva, called a veliger, undergoes torsion, a 180° twisting of the body that brings the posterior part of the body to an anterior position behind the head. Torsion is unique to the gastropods.

      In some species the swimming veliger stage persists for weeks or even months. The veliger has a small shell into which the velar lobes and head can be withdrawn and a larval heart that seems to exist solely to provide circulation in the velar lobes. Food consists of diatoms (diatom) (an algae group) and other small plankton collected by ciliary currents of the velum and channeled by the currents into the mouth. Special excretory cells located on either side of the mouth and the larval heart disappear when the veliger leaves the plankton and metamorphoses into a crawling snail. After metamorphosis, the juvenile snail starts a typical pattern of rapid growth until sexual maturity, at which point growth either ceases or is greatly slowed as energy is diverted to the production of the next generation. In opisthobranchs and many pulmonates, the life span is about one year, although there are notable exceptions. Prosobranchs in general seem to have a much longer life span, with some species of the freshwater Vivipara living 20 years in captivity. Some Sonoran Desert snails from California have been revived after eight years in estivation. Such desert species may live 20 to 50 years.

      Several trends are evident in gastropod life-history evolution from the basic pattern. First, there is a tendency toward the development of structures to permit internal fertilization. In some species, pallial reproductive tubes of male and female become closed tubes, and a male copulatory organ develops on the right side of the head for transmission of sperm to the female. In many species the trochophore and veliger stages are passed within an egg mass or capsule provided with a food supply, rather than as free-swimming immature organisms that must find their own food. At first, provision of nutriment for the young probably involved laying eggs in a mucous mass. As evolution progressed, more rigid capsules containing yolk and with a protective cover might have been laid singly or in masses. Some species currently provide parental care of the eggs or egg mass. Finally the eggs are retained inside a brood pouch or the uterus of some species until the young are ready to hatch (ovoviviparity). An additional evolutionary trend involves sex reversal and the development of hermaphroditism—the presence of both male and female sex organs in one animal; the members of nearly all opisthobranch and pulmonate species are hermaphrodites.

      Such changes occurred more than once during gastropod evolution, and there is no pattern of changes that would suggest clear evolutionary relationships. The differences correlate with habitat and frequently are seen within species of one genus. Littorina is a classic example: in England L. neritoides lives in crevices of exposed rocks above normal high water but releases floating (pelagic) egg capsules during fortnightly high tides or storms; L. littorea, on the lower half of the shore, also has pelagic egg capsules, which hatch six days later into veligers; L. littoralis, which lives on seaweeds that are rarely exposed by the tides, deposits gelatinous egg masses on the seaweeds, and the larvae pass through the veliger stage in the egg mass, emerging in two to three weeks as crawling young; and L. saxatilis, which extends from midtide level to several feet above the high-water mark, retains the eggs inside the female until they hatch as crawling young.

      In the most primitive prosobranchs the duct carrying eggs or sperm (gonoduct) opens into the kidney or renopericardial duct; in more-advanced archaeogastropods it opens into the ureter. Separation of the excretory and reproductive ducts occurred later in evolution and is evident in the orders Mesogastropoda and Neogastropoda. The females of these latter forms have the upper portion of the oviduct specialized for secreting nutritive material around the fertilized eggs and the lower portion for encapsulating the egg and nutritive material.

      Prosobranchs such as Cerithiopsis, Janthina, and Turritella have extremely large, modified sperm that carry thousands of smaller, normal sperm from the male into the oviduct of the female; the large sperm swim the substantial distance between individuals. More frequently a penis is used to insert a stream of sperm into a special storage organ or the oviduct. In the opisthobranch Limapontia the penis stylet injects sperm through the body wall into a storage organ (bursa) of the mate.

      Not surprisingly, land gastropods exhibit internal fertilization. The more primitive species directly transfer a stream or gelatinous mass of sperm by insertion of the penis. One individual can act as a male and the other as a female, or copulation can be reciprocal. During evolution, loosely adherent masses of sperm gave rise to enclosed packets of sperm and then to horny or calcareous sperm bundles (spermatophores) with elaborately ornamented exteriors. It is not uncommon for there to be as many as 12 such spermatophores inside the bursa of one female. Closely related species show clear differences in the number and spacing of exterior spikes. Undoubtedly, this difference provides a method of species recognition among these snails. Other pulmonates depend on explicit courtship patterns (such as the slugs from the family Limacidae) or structural differences in the penis (as in the land snails of the family Endodontidae) to distinguish members of their own species.

      Most members of the prosobranch family Calyptraeidae begin life as fully functional males but, after a transitional phase, spend their remaining life span as females. Crepidula (slipper shell) species, for example, form stacks of as many as 19 individuals. The younger ones on top are male, the old ones on the bottom female, and those in the middle are intermediate in sex. Isolated young individuals function as males for only a week or two, but young males in a stack remain male for a longer period, through some unidentified influence of the larger females underneath. Some limpets also undergo sex reversal.

       egg production is correlated with the degree of care given the eggs or young. On one extreme, some species produce hundreds of thousands or even millions of eggs. These eggs receive no care and suffer massive mortality (fewer than 1 percent survive). On the other extreme, some species produce only one or two eggs, which receive intensive parental care. There are also many gradations between the extremes. Many members of the orders Mesogastropoda and Neogastropoda produce egg capsules that may contain from one to more than 1,000 eggs. In Busycon, for example, each capsule may contain up to 1,000 eggs, but extensive cannibalization occurs upon unhatched eggs in the capsule and among the early hatched young. Strombus can lay a tubular string of eggs 23 metres (75 feet) long, with up to 460,000 eggs. Many snails in the genus Conus cement up to 1.5 million eggs in capsules on the undersides of rocks. Opisthobranchs weave delicate ribbons of eggs in colourful gelatinous sheets—sometimes up to 50 millimetres (two inches) of ribbon per hour—that contain many millions of eggs. In these cases, the eggs hatch into swimming veligers. Freshwater snails frequently deposit fertilized eggs in capsules on plant leaves or rocks, but the number of eggs deposited is much less than in the marine gastropods.

      Direct care of the embryos is given in different ways. A small trochid, Clanculus bertheloti, deposits its eggs in grooves on the shell surface and covers them with a sheet of mucus to hold them in place; many Neptunea simply cement the egg capsules to their shell surface. Many Crepidula species deposit a mass of 5,000 to 20,000 eggs under the shell edge just in front of the female's foot, brooding them until they hatch as veligers. Freshwater viviparids and thiarids have either uterine or neck brood pouches, in which the fertilized eggs develop to a crawling stage. The vermetid Stephopoma and the acmaeid Acmaea rubella brood their young in the mantle cavity between the fleshy body and the shell. A number of endodontid land snails on Pacific islands deposit their eggs in the umbilicus, an opening in the shell base. In one species, Libera fratercula, the young gnaw their way out through the apex of the maternal shell. One pteropod, Hydromeles, has an internal brood chamber that apparently ruptures, freeing the young into the body cavity of the parent; the escape of the young may cause the parent's death.

      Even without direct care of the eggs, land snails generally lay fewer than 200 eggs at a time. This reflects the different problems encountered on land and the lower mortality of larvae that are protected within the egg coverings. Many slugs and some snails bury egg masses in soil or under moist pieces of bark. Others, such as Discus, scatter their eggs singly over bark and decaying wood. One tropical genus (Amphidromus) rolls a leaf into a tube, seals one end with mucus, and lays its eggs in the cylinder thus formed. The South American Strophocheilus lays one large egg about four centimetres (1.5 inches) long. Among the many ways in which land snails minimize losses from drying is the adoption of ovoviviparity, or the hatching of eggs within the parent's body.

      The evolutionary trend from the simple release of eggs and sperm into the surrounding seawater toward the provision of a large quantity of nutritive materials and protective encapsulation of each fertilized egg has resulted in an increase in the size of the organs that provide these abilities as well as a reduction in the sizes of the ovary and testis. The shift to direct transfer of sperm masses has led to evolution of both complex structures and complex behaviours for species recognition.

Ecology and habitats

      Although all levels of the ocean are inhabited by snails, they are in greatest abundance in and just below the tidal zones, where the most abundant quantities of food may be found. The extent of their effect on a coastline (coast) is indicated by the estimate that an average population of 860 million Littorina (periwinkles) on one square mile of rocky shore ingests 2,200 tons of material each year, only about 55 tons of which is organic matter. Limpets (limpet) of all types are even more influential in such habitats, browsing and grazing on the algae and sessile animals. One interesting characteristic of limpets is that of homing. Numerous species have the tendency to settle on one spot and to feed on regular pathways radiating from this home base, to which they return for rest or under stressful conditions.

      Some larger prosobranchs are selective herbivores, cutting off one- to two-centimetre (0.4- to 0.8-inch) strips of seaweed for swallowing. More characteristic of the sand and mud flats are scavengers (scavenger) that indiscriminately take in surface debris; scavengers are found in various groups, including limpets, strombids, and nassariids. Carnivores include both surface hunters and burrowing forms such as the naticids (moon snails). Some carnivorous species (e.g., moon snails and dog whelks) have evolved specialized glands that secrete a complex combination of acids and enzymes, enabling the snails to bore through the shells of other mollusks. As an adaptation to sedentary life, snails in several families have adopted mucociliary feeding by collecting food particles from water currents. Sensory reception to detect prey is highly developed in many carnivores.

      Heteropods swim either by undulations of the foot or by the action of fleshy fins. Pelagic opisthobranchs show almost every conceivable type of swimming mechanism and are at times extremely abundant on the ocean surface. Among pteropods (sea butterflies), the foot has become divided and elongated into two thin muscular wings that can be used to propel the snail through the water. Many opisthobranchs and most small freshwater pulmonates can glide on the underside of the surface film of the water but are not able to swim.

      Diversity of mollusks in the ocean has resulted in part from specialization in food resources. Temperature and salinity are the prime physical factors limiting range extensions, usually by preventing successful breeding rather than by preventing settlement and growth of young.

      The evolutionary migration of snails from marine habitats into fresh water and onto land required a number of new adaptations (adaptation). Snails had extra problems to solve, relating to their basic feeding and reproductive patterns. In the ocean, dispersal can take place by way of a veliger stage transported passively by currents and waves. In streams and rivers such a means of dispersal would result in downstream spread only. Probably because of this, along with the osmotic problems faced by tiny embryos developing in fresh water, the veliger stage was suppressed; instead, many freshwater prosobranchs brood the young inside the female, and pulmonates attach egg capsules to rocks, to vegetation, or to other snail shells. This essentially restricts snail dispersal to individual movement or occasional transport by birds and other vertebrates. In prosobranchs with separate sexes, the freshwater distributions closely follow drainage systems, because, in order to colonize a new body of water, either a pregnant female must be transported or both a male and a female must arrive at about the same time. The majority of pulmonates in fresh water are hermaphrodites (hermaphroditism) and are capable of self-fertilization as well as cross-fertilization with other individuals. As a result, any pulmonate entering a new body of water can establish a considerable population of that species in a short time. For this reason, isolated ponds often have several species of pulmonates but only rarely prosobranch gastropods. In crawling over waterweeds, the pulmonates frequently come in contact with the feet or feathers of wading birds, to which they adhere accidentally by mucus secretion and are carried to a new pond.

      Land snails avoid desiccation in several ways. Prosobranchs retreat into their shells, and the operculum effectively seals the opening against the exterior. In the tropics, land operculates have developed elaborate breathing tubes to allow gas exchange during dry periods and yet minimize water loss. Pulmonates lack an operculum, but a great number of the forms secrete either simple mucous coverings (epiphragms) across the shell aperture or, in some of the more arid areas, a calcium-impregnated seal that can be almost as thick as the shell itself. Most land snails, however, have adjusted to life on land primarily through behaviour (animal behaviour) patterns. They stay in areas of high moisture or retreat into damp niches during short dry spells. A few burrow into soil. Sonorella species survive by remaining dormant during the years between rains; the genital structures of many individuals are reduced or lost to minimize use of energy in reproductive activities.

      Only in the wet and warm tropics have tree snails been able to evolve. These species have brightly coloured shells that usually are much thinner than those of their terrestrial counterparts. In the humid mountain regions of the world, where a constant supply of moisture is available throughout the year, there has been a marked tendency toward reduction of the shell and the evolution of slugs. This tendency probably results from two different selective pressures that reinforce each other. The shell, which is useful primarily in providing protection against desiccation, is no longer needed when moisture is plentiful. Secondly, construction of the shell requires calcium, which is generally in short supply on the slopes of volcanic mountains. With the need for the shell lessened and the primary constituent in short supply, any mutation favouring shell reduction is advantageous. Although most species of slugs seem to have evolved in mountain areas, their spread into lowlands has been greatly aided by crop irrigation and garden watering.

      Most land snails occupy the surface litter and upper soil zone. This microhabitat is generally moist, and food is plentiful in the form of decaying animals and plants as well as fungi. Most land snails have shells that are drab in colour and inconspicuous. Frequently, the shell surface is highly sculpted. The minute species (less than three millimetres [0.1 inch] in diameter) are preyed upon by small arthropods. The normal instinct of a snail to withdraw into its shell is of no help, since the predator simply follows the snail into its shell. Elaborate barriers that narrow the shell opening and tiny spines along the opening must provide some protection, since this construction occurs among species in more than 12 pulmonate families.

      Most land snails feed directly on decaying plant matter, which is a simple shift in feeding behaviour from the primitive browsing of their marine ancestors. The carnivorous habit probably evolved through a transition period of carrion eaters. Many slugs feed on dead animal matter as well as plants. Pursuit and capture of other snails or earthworms demand increased sensory equipment and more rapid motion. Most carnivores, such as Euglandina, have greatly elongated bodies that allow them to reach farther into the shells of their victims.

Locomotion

      The foot is the organ of locomotion in land gastropods. In swimming and sessile forms, however, the foot is greatly reduced or greatly modified. The normal progression of a snail is by muscular action, with a series of contraction waves proceeding from the posterior to the anterior end of the gliding portion of the foot. A few groups have the foot divided into right and left halves, with separate waves moving on each side. When the foot is narrow, as in Strombus and Aporrhais, the animal moves in fits and starts, tumbling along by a digging action of the foot and the pointed operculum. Certain small gastropod species move by the beating action of cilia (cilium) of the foot on the mucous (mucus) sheet secreted by the anterior part of the foot. Most prosobranchs are slow-moving, with a speed of less than eight centimetres (about three inches) per minute, although Haliotis has been reported to move at almost 10 times that rate.

      Many opisthobranchs use foot musculature to move, but some glide on the underside of water-surface films through ciliary action. Swimming has been achieved in a number of ways. Body undulations propel such large snails as Dendronotus and Melibe. Pteropods, Gastropteron, Akera, and others move foot flaps (parapodia) to provide motion, and some species swim by undulating their entire bodies.

      Freshwater pulmonates use ciliary action on a bed of mucus secreted by the snail.

      Land pulmonates depend upon a combination of muscular action and cilia for locomotion. In many of these species the foot is divided longitudinally into three parts, with locomotor activity being confined to the central section, which glides on a mucous track. An additional use of slime by slugs is in the act of mating. A slime rope is secreted from which the mating pair of slugs are able to suspend themselves. If irritated, slugs can secrete copious quantities of slime. This reaction is the basis for one of the most effective methods of controlling slugs: spreading enough ashes in slug-infested areas causes exhaustion and death of the animals through the overproduction of slime.

      Some of the small, tropical, brightly coloured sluglike species will, when disturbed, travel at a very high rate of speed with the anterior half of the foot lifted off the ground. They can continue moving at this pace for a distance of almost a metre at a rate faster than one metre per minute in snails less than two to three centimetres (or about one inch) in body length. Large gastropods, such as Achatina or Strophocheilus, are much slower, although carnivores are usually relatively fast-moving.

Food and feeding

      As in all molluscan groups except the bivalves, gastropods have a firm odontophore at the anterior end of the digestive tract. Generally, this organ supports a broad ribbon ( radula) covered with a few to many thousand “teeth” (denticles). The radula is used in feeding: muscles extrude the radula from the mouth, spread it out, and then slide it over the supporting odontophore, carrying particles or pieces of food and debris into the esophagus. Although attached at both ends, the radula grows continuously during the gastropod's life, with new rows of denticles being formed posteriorly to replace the worn denticles cast off at the anterior end. Both form and number of denticles vary greatly among species—the differences correlating with food and habitat changes. Radular morphology is an important tool for species identification.

      Evidently, the most primitive type of gastropod feeding involved browsing and grazing of algae from rocks. Some species of the order Archaeogastropoda still retain the basic rhipidoglossan radula, in which many slender marginal teeth are arranged in transverse rows. During use, the outer, or marginal, denticles swing outward, and the radula is curled under the anterior end of the odontophore. The latter is pressed against the feeding surface, and, one row at a time, the denticles are erected and scrape across the surface, removing fine particles as the odontophore is withdrawn into the mouth. As the marginals swing inward, food particles are carried toward the midline of the radula and collected into a mucous mass. By folding the teeth inward, damage to the mouth lining is avoided and food particles are concentrated. Mucus-bound food particles are then passed through the esophagus and into the gut for sorting and digestion.

      From this basic pattern, numerous specializations have developed, involving changes in the numbers, sizes, and shapes of radular teeth that correspond to dietary specializations. Prosobranch gastropods include herbivores, omnivores, parasites, and carnivores, some of which drill through the shells of bivalves, gastropods, or echinoderms to feed. Some gastropods, for example, possess a “toxoglossate” radula that has only two teeth, which are formed and used alternately. Most toxoglossate gastropods inject a poison via the functional tooth. Prey selection usually is highly specific. Although many cones hunt polychaete worms, others prey on gastropods or fishes, using the radular tooth as a harpoon, with poison being injected into the prey through the hollow shaft of the tooth. Several of the large fish-eating cones (cone shell), which produce a variety of potent nerve poisons, have been known to kill humans.

      Some other gastropods, such as the opisthobranch Dolabella, have as many as 460 teeth per row with a total of 25,000 denticles. In terms of feeding, opisthobranchs are extremely varied. Besides the algae-sucking sacoglossans, Aplysia cuts up strips of seaweed for swallowing, and a number of the more primitive species feed on algae encrusted on rocks. Perhaps the majority of opisthobranchs, including the sea slugs, are predators on sessile animals, ascidians and coelenterates being especially favoured. Pyramidellids are ectoparasites on a variety of organisms. Some of the pteropods are ciliary feeders on microorganisms.

      Pulmonate gastropods are predominantly herbivores, with only a few scavenging and predatory species. Primitively, the pulmonate radular (radula) tooth has three raised points, or cusps (i.e., is tricuspid), but modifications involving splitting of cusps or reductions to one cusp are numerous. The modification of the radular tooth reflects dietary differences between species. In particular, with each successive appearance of a carnivorous type during evolution, the teeth have been reduced in number, each tooth usually having one long, sickle-shaped cusp.

      Much of the diversity achieved by the gastropods relates to the evolutionary shifts in radular structure, which have led to exploitation of a variety of food sources. Predators capable of swimming, surface crawling, and burrowing to capture prey have evolved among the prosobranchs and opisthobranchs; predators that produce chemical substances for entering the shells of their prey have evolved among the mesogastropods (family Naticidae and superfamily Tonnacea), the neogastropods (family Muricidae), and a nudibranch opisthobranch (Okadaia); and, in the pulmonates, predation and thus a carnivorous diet have evolved at least 12 times.

Form and function

      Gastropods present such a variety of structures and adaptations that few all-encompassing characteristics can be presented. The following survey focuses on variety in the external shell and the body.

The shell

      The typical snail has a calcareous shell coiled in a spiral pattern around a central axis called the columella. Generally, the coils, or whorls, added later in life are larger than those added when the snail is young. At the end of the last whorl is the aperture, or opening. The shell is secreted along the outer lip of the aperture by the fleshy part of the animal called the mantle, first by outward additions to the shell lip and then by secretion of inner thickening layers. The outer layer, or periostracum, is a mixture of proteins known as conchin. Inner layers of calcium carbonate interlace with a network of conchin and are impregnated with a variety of mineral salts. The calcium usually is in the form of calcite crystals in marine species and aragonite crystals in terrestrial species, but mixtures of crystal types do occur. New shell is secreted by specialized mantle tissue.

      Modifications and ornamentations of the basic shell are widely variable among species. Frequently, the shell is altered into a nonspiral cap or a cup-shaped limpet form as an adaptation to life in swift currents (the freshwater family Ancylidae) or amid pounding waves on rocks (the marine families Acmaeidae, Patellidae, Fissurellidae, and Calyptraeidae). In many groups, such as the abalones (abalone) (the family Haliotidae (ear shell)), only traces of spiral coiling are evident, because the rate of successive whorl widths is so large that the last, or body, whorl occupies more than 90 percent of the shell volume. Elaborate surface sculpture, including knobs and spines, has evolved to serve as protection against predation. In a few species of the genera Leucozonia and Acanthina, a spine on the lip edge is used to wedge open clam valves so that the snail can feed. As implied earlier, land gastropods in dry regions tend to have very thick shells; on the other hand, those in very humid mountain situations have thin shells or none at all. Many carnivorous snails have the calcareous part of the shell greatly reduced.

The body

      The gastropod body consists of four main parts: visceral hump, mantle, head, and foot. The body is attached to the shell either by one columellar muscle or by a series of muscles. Typical snails can withdraw the head and foot into the shell, but numerous species have shells so reduced in size as to be unable to contain the body; slugs, of course, have either an internal shell vestige or no shell at all.

The visceral hump

      The visceral hump, or visceral mass, of gastropods is always contained within the shell; it generally holds the bulk of the digestive, reproductive, excretory, and respiratory systems. A significant part of the visceral hump consists of the mantle, or pallial, cavity. In both prosobranchs and shelled opisthobranchs this is a cavity completely open anteriorly; in pulmonates it is closed except for a narrow pore. The mantle tissue at the forward edge of the cavity secretes the shell. The upper surface of the mantle cavity serves a respiratory function. In marine species the ciliated lining of the mantle cavity helps produce a water current that passes posteriorly across the gill, or ctenidium, and the osphradium, which is thought to be a sensory receptor that can detect chemical changes in the environment. Both organs lie on the left anterior side of the cavity. The water current sweeps across the posterior part of the mantle cavity, where the nephridiopore, or kidney opening, lies; the water current then passes anteriorly along the right margin past the anus, through which undigested particles of food are eliminated, and usually moves past the gonopore, through which sexual products are released. Cilia on the gill play an important role in water flow through the mantle cavity; they also help some species (e.g., Crepidula) capture food particles.

      The mantle cavity serves as a space for the head and foot when these organs are retracted. Many land pulmonates apparently also use the mantle cavity to retain water. Prosobranchs use the operculum, the horny or calcareous disk located on the back of the foot at the posterior end, to seal the shell opening after the head and body have been retracted.

The mantle (mantle)

      The mantle is the fleshy lining of the outer wall of the shell; it roofs the mantle cavity. At its anterior end lie glandular tissues that deposit the various shell layers. In terrestrial forms with reduced shells, various lobes and laps extend anteriorly over the neck and head or are reflected back over the shell surface. These are highly vascularized and probably serve both in respiration and in water balance of the body. Many carnivorous marine forms have the mantle collar extended forward and rolled into a muscular siphon, which functions in both food location and chemoreception by allowing the snail to sample water in different directions.

The head

      Generally, the head is bilaterally symmetrical, bearing one or two pairs of tentacles, often with accessory palps, and the mouth in the middle of the ventral margin. In stylommatophoran land snails the upper tentacles, or ommatophores, are invaginable (capable of being rolled in), and the eyes are borne at the tips. In freshwater basommatophorans and most prosobranchs the eyes are located at the base of the tentacles, although in such forms as Strombus the eyes are elevated onto an accessory stalk. Prosobranchs have contractile (not invaginable) tentacles. In carnivorous snails the lateral lips of the mouth form lobes called labial palps, which help to locate prey. The mouth itself frequently is prolonged into a proboscis that extends well in front of the tentacles. Carnivorous species often have a proboscis capable of great extension, either invaginable or contractile.

The foot

      Although the basic form of the foot is a flat, broadly tapered, muscular organ, which is highly glandularized and usually ciliated, numerous modifications occur in various groups. Frequently there is an anterior-posterior division into a propodium and a metapodium, with the former capable of being reflexed over the shell. In Strombus the foot is greatly narrowed; in limpets and abalones it is broadly expanded and serves as an adhesive disk. In pelagic gastropods, especially the heteropods and pteropods, the foot is a swimming organ. Many prosobranchs and some opisthobranchs have lateral projections of the foot called parapodia; they are used in swimming or else are reflexed over the shell surface. An unusual feature found in several kinds of land slugs, some nudibranchs (nudibranch), and the neogastropod marine family Harpidae is the ability to self-amputate the posterior portion of the foot, which remains wriggling violently to distract a predator while the anterior foot and visceral mass creep slowly away to safety.

The nervous system and sense organs

      A series of paired ganglia (knotlike masses of nerve cell bodies that collectively function as the central nervous system) are connected by nerve cords, which are bilaterally arranged in the primitive forms. The process of torsion has twisted the visceral cords into the form of a figure eight. In more-advanced gastropods there are secondary modifications to a more nearly bilateral state, and in many groups there has been detorsion. Water-dwelling mollusks depend primarily upon ciliary water currents passing across chemoreceptors (chemoreception) for information from the environment. The primary chemoreceptors in the gastropod body are scattered over the skin surface, protruding from tentacles or palps, and housed inside the mantle cavity in the form of the osphradium, an olfactory organ connected to the respiratory system. Sense organs are more highly developed in carnivores than in herbivores. Eyespots (eyespot), located at the base (most gastropods) or tip (land pulmonates) of the eye tentacles, are primarily light-sensitive rather than image-forming. A pair of statocysts, thought to be balancing organs, is present in nonsessile taxa.

Digestive system

      The radular motion conveys food particles into the mouth, and ciliary currents move the food through the digestive tract, except in carnivores, where muscular action plays an important role. Various salivary and digestive glands secrete enzymes into either or both the buccal cavity and the stomach, where digestion takes place. The apical digestive gland, or “liver,” can store digested food for use during periods of inactivity.

The excretory system

      There are two kidneys, or nephridia (nephridium), in primitive gastropods, such as the archaeogastropods, while, in the advanced forms, one kidney is small or lost. The kidney plays different roles, depending upon the environment in which the snail lives. Most marine gastropods have the same total concentrations of solutes as in the surrounding seawater, and thus a small osmotic differential (i.e., an equilibrium) exists between the water leaving and that entering the cell. Little energy is needed therefore to prevent the cells from losing or gaining too much water. Freshwater gastropods, however, have a higher total solute concentration than that of the surrounding water. The kidney must expend energy to control water balance ( osmoregulation). The flow of water through the mantle cavity is restricted in freshwater species by the closure of the mantle cavity by the mantle collar. Land prosobranchs have an open mantle cavity and, in order to conserve water, secrete nearly crystalline urine. Land pulmonates have a ureteric groove or closed ureter that resorbs water from the urine. In both marine and freshwater species, ciliary water currents sweep the excreted matter out of the mantle cavity.

Respiration

      In marine and freshwater gastropods, respiration takes place as water currents pass across the gill surfaces within the mantle cavity in most species with spiral shells, across gill elements along the sides of the bodies in most limpets, or through projections from the body surface in sea slugs or other taxa with reduced shells. The upper surface of the mantle cavity is heavily vascularized in land snails, which use muscular contractions to pump air in and out of the small respiratory pore at the anterior edge of the mantle cavity. In some land slugs or tropical snails with reduced shells, respiratory functions have shifted either to external projections from the mantle collar or to the skin as the area of mantle roof available for respiration has decreased in size.

The reproductive system

      The primitive archaeogastropods retain two nephridia; the right nephridium provides the passage for eggs or sperm from the ovary or testis to the mantle cavity. The sexes are separate in nearly all prosobranchs, although in a few taxa, such as Crepidula, an animal begins life as a male and then changes to a female later. Opisthobranch and pulmonate species are hermaphroditic (hermaphroditism) and often protandrous (male gonads maturing first); however, in many taxa, adults become simultaneous hermaphrodites (male and female gonads are functional at the same time). Internal fertilization is common in the more advanced marine species but mandatory in the freshwater and terrestrial groups. A very few gastropod species are parthenogenetic (gametes developing without fertilization); the progeny of these species are clones of the parent.

Features of defense

      Warning coloration is found in some of the brilliantly coloured shells and bodies of carnivorous marine snails that produce highly toxic poisons. Similar bright colours characterize some land snails and slugs that secrete noxious chemicals and thus will be sampled only once by a predator. Camouflage coloration provides partial protection against predation by some European land snails.

Evolution and paleontology

      The basic trends in snail evolution (aside from changes in radular and shell morphology) involve a loss of organs, a change from an herbivorous to a carnivorous diet, a shift from the ocean to freshwater and terrestrial life, and the adoption of a sluglike form through reduction or loss of the shell and visceral hump. Each change has occurred independently several times in the course of gastropod evolution.

      Prosobranch gastropods are the most primitive. One group, the Diotocardia, which retains two sets of mantle organs, is nearest the generalized gastropod in structure. Gradual loss of the set of mantle organs on the right side of the body occurs in the primitive archaeogastropod superfamilies Trochacea and Neritacea, thus providing a transition to the more highly developed order Monotocardia, with only one set of mantle organs. Among the numerous changes in the Monotocardia are fewer radular teeth and a shift from grazing on algae and fungi to predation and the consumption of larger sessile organisms. The two main divisions of the Monotocardia show different evolutionary patterns. Although most mesogastropods have remained coastal marine, a number of species have invaded freshwater environments. Others crossed to land directly from the tidal zone, rather than passing through a freshwater transitional period. At the peak of prosobranch evolution is the order Neogastropoda, all marine predators with highly modified radular teeth and often well-developed poison glands to aid in capturing prey. Reduction and loss of the right mantle organs are correlated with more efficient respiration and sensory apparatuses, in which a water current crosses over the sensory organs and gills on the left side, then out on the right side, together with excretory and fecal deposits. Gill cilia are largely responsible for creating these water currents.

      Opisthobranchs probably arose from an unknown group of primitive prosobranchs and have evolved extensively into different lines showing a reduction of the visceral hump and shell. In certain forms the foot is shortened, and external cerata develop to provide a respiratory surface to replace the lost mantle-cavity surface and ctenidia. Members of family Pyramidellidae (order Heterostropha) contain a mixture of prosobranch and opisthobranch characteristics.

      Pulmonates show varying degrees of adjustment to freshwater and land life, with increasing union of the male and female gonoducts characterizing the more advanced groups. Similarly, the highly advanced suborder Holopoda and superfamily Limacacea show complex accessory organs on the genitalia and a more sophisticated means of water conservation through development of a closed secondary ureter and resorption of water from the excretory products. More than a dozen different groups of pulmonates have become predators, usually upon other snails or earthworms.

      Fossil gastropods are known from Cambrian deposits. Since the shell is often very similar in unrelated families, fossil gastropods more than 350 million years old are not usually placed in the classification outlined below but instead are treated separately. Most neogastropod prosobranchs appeared near the end of the Mesozoic (66.4 million years ago), and many groups of land snails are known from Eocene formations (roughly 56 million to 34 million years old). Snails had their adaptive radiation early in geologic history. Living genera of marine, freshwater, and land snail families are known from Oligocene to Miocene deposits (34 million to 5.3 million years old). Unlike mammals, who have undergone great evolutionary change in the last 50 million years, gastropods have shown little progressive evolution during that time.

Classification

      Since the 1980s, gastropod classification has been the subject of extensive debate. Major revisions based on detailed information about traditional anatomy and shell features have been challenged by cladistic attempts to identify changes that have taken place once in the evolutionary history of a group and thus derive phylogenetic schemes, attempts to delineate the genealogy of groups based primarily on neurological structures. Both traditional and cladistic classification schemes are being tested by data from molecular studies. Given the antiquity of the gastropods as a group, however, it is perhaps realistic to expect that most changes have occurred more than once. Graham gave an excellent review of anatomic and functional trends, concluding that many of the groups historically recognized as advanced are grades reached by several taxa independently, not monophyletic clades (groups with the same ancestor).

      A conservative classification is presented below, basically using concepts from S.P. Parker (1982) and F.W. Harrison (1992).

Class Gastropoda (snails and slugs)

 Snails typically with a calcareous shell, slugs with greatly reduced shell; length ranges from about 1 mm to 130 cm; more than 65,000 species widely distributed in marine, freshwater, and land regions.

      Subclass Prosobranchia (prosobranch)

 Streptoneurous (twisted) gastropods with an anteriorly located mantle cavity (space lined with epidermis); operculum (protective cover) generally present; sexes separate; shell can usually hold entire animal; primarily marine, several freshwater and terrestrial groups; about 33,000 species.

      Order Diotocardia (Archaeogastropoda)

 Heart usually with 2 auricles; 1 or 2 internal gills; no penis, siphon (organ used in food location), or proboscis (feeding organ); nervous system not concentrated; sex cells discharged by way of the right nephridium (kidney); about 3,000 species.

      Superfamily Zeugobranchia (Pleurotomariacea)

 Slit shells (Pleurotomariidae) in deep ocean waters; abalones (Haliotidae (ear shell)) in shallow waters along rocky shores of western North America, Japan, Australia, and South Africa; keyhole limpets (Fissurellidae) in intertidal rocky areas.

      Superfamily Patellacea (Docoglossa)

 Conical-shelled limpets, without slits or holes, found in rocky shallow waters (Acmaeidae and Patellidae).

      Superfamily Trochacea

 Small to large spiral shells in shallow to deep ocean waters, often brightly coloured, with or without heavy shell ornamentation; Trochidae (top shells (top shell)), Turbinidae (turban shells (turban shell)), and Phasianellidae (pheasant shells).

      Superfamily Neritacea

 Small, generally intertidal marine shells (Neritidae), with some freshwater dwellers, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines (Neritidae), and 2 groups of land dwellers: 1 sparsely distributed in the Old World (Hydrocenidae) and 1 widely distributed in both Old and New World tropics (Helicinidae).

      Order Monotocardia

 Heart with 1 auricle; 1 gill, often modified; siphon and chemoreception osphradium (sensory receptor) progressively more complex; penis present; head frequently modified into a proboscis; nervous system progressively more concentrated; about 30,000 species.

      Suborder Mesogastropoda (Taenioglossa)

 Radula taenioglossate (with 7 denticles, or teeth) or reduced; most taxa herbivorous; a few families parasites or predators.

      Superfamily Cyclophoracea

 Land snails; particularly abundant in the West Indies and southern Asia to Melanesia.

      Superfamily Viviparacea

 Large, 2.5- to 5-cm globular pond and river snails of the Northern Hemisphere (Viviparidae) and tropical regions (Ampullariidae); frequently used in freshwater aquariums with tropical fish.

      Superfamily Littorinacea

 Periwinkles (periwinkle), on rocky shores (Littorinidae) of all oceans; land snails of the West Indies, part of Africa, and Europe (Pomatiasidae).

      Superfamily Rissoacea

 Small to minute, generally cylindrical, marine, freshwater and land snails found in most tropical and warm temperate regions of the world; about 17 families.

      Superfamily Cerithiacea

 Minute to large, generally elaborately sculptured shells, common in mud flats and mangroves, many species sand dwellers, with 1 group of families (Thiaridae, Pleuroceridae, Melanopsidae) especially abundant and varied in the Tennessee and Alabama river systems; 13 marine families, including worm shells (worm shell) (Vermetidae), horn shells (Potamididae), and button shells (Modulidae).

      Superfamily Strombacea

 Foot and operculum greatly modified and move with a lurching motion; feed on algae and plants; some species used for human food; conchs (Strombidae) of tropical oceans and the pelican's foot shells (Aporrhaidae) of near Arctic waters.

      Superfamily Calyptraeacea

 Cap shells (Capulidae) and slipper shells (Calyptraeidae) are limpets with irregularly shaped shells with a small internal cup or shelf; many species show sex reversal, becoming males early in life, then changing into females during old age; common on rocks and clamshells and in dead large snail shells in most oceans.

      Superfamily Cypraeacea

 Cowrie shells (Cypraeidae) and egg shells (Ovulidae) have highly polished and brilliantly coloured shells; mantle, which may cover the shell, is a totally different colour pattern; if touched, members of group suddenly withdraw, the change in colour serving to confuse predators; common in shallow tropical oceans, some species in cooler waters.

      Superfamily Naticacea

 Moon shells (Naticidae) medium-sized, globular predators on burrowing bivalves: bore a hole in the clamshell using acid secretions, then insert the radula to feed; common in most oceans.

      Superfamily Ptenoglossa (Scalacea)

 Wentletraps (wentletrap) (Epitoniidae) live in shallow to deep ocean waters; purple snails (Janthinidae) float on the ocean surface after building a raft of bubbles; large numbers of bubble shells occasionally blow ashore.

      Superfamily Aglossa

 Parasitic or predatory snails either with a reduced radula or with none, jaws often modified into a stylet-shaped structure; many occur on echinoderms; consists of several poorly known families.

      Superfamily Doliacea (Tonnacea)

 Generally tropical predators on echinoderms; often burrow in sand; includes helmet shells (helmet shell) (Cassidae), tun shells (Doliidae), frog shells (Bursidae), triton shells (triton shell) (Cymatiidae), and fig shells (Ficidae); frog and triton shells often live in rocky areas; most species large in size.

      Suborder Neogastropoda (Stenoglossa)

 Carnivorous or scavengers with rachiglossate (with 3 denticles) or taxoglossate (with 2 denticles) radula; shell often with long siphonal canal; proboscis well developed and often extensible; shells generally large; all marine.

      Superfamily Muricacea

  murex shells (Muricidae), rock shells (Purpuridae), and coral shells (Coralliophilidae) are common predators, often boring into shells of their prey; rock shells common in cooler waters, others mostly tropical.

      Superfamily Buccineacea

 Scavengers that have lost the mechanisms for boring; dove shells (Columbellidae), mud snails (Nassariidae), tulip shells (Fasciolariidae), whelks (whelk) (Buccinidae), and crown conchs (Galeodidae) mainly cool-water species; but dove and tulip shells have many tropical representatives.

      Superfamily Volutacea

 Harp shells (Harpidae), olive shells (olive shell) (Olividae), mitre shells (mitre shell) (Mitridae), volute shells (Volutidae), nutmeg shells (Cancellariidae), and marginellas (Marginellidae) generally have operculum reduced or lacking; most are tropical ocean dwellers, active predators or scavengers; many olive, volute, and marginella shells are highly polished and colourful.

      Superfamily Toxoglossa

 Auger shells (Terebridae), cone shells (cone shell) (Conidae) and turrid shells (Turridae) are carnivorous marine snails with poison glands attached to highly modified radular teeth; several cone shells have caused human deaths through poisoning and can catch and kill fish.

      Subclass Opisthobranchia (opisthobranch)

 Shell reduced or lacking, usually too small for withdrawal of animal; mantle cavity often lost, rotated to right side and facing anteriorly; hermaphroditic; operculum generally lost; nerve ganglia (clusters) very concentrated; marine except for 4 species; about 4,000 species.

      Order Cephalaspidea (bubble shell)

 Shell present, often capable of containing whole body; head shield developed; Acteonidae with operculum; 14 families.

      Order Pyramidellacea

 Spiral shell; operculum present; gill and radula absent; long proboscis with stylet; ectoparasitic; in warm oceanic areas; generally minute.

      Order Acochlidacea

 Three families with visceral mass longer than foot; 4 species in fresh water; a few with sexes in separate animals; size minute.

      Order Philinoglossacea

 No head appendages; gill lacking; no external shell; 2 families.

      Order Anaspidea

 Shell reduced to flat plate; feed on large seaweed rather than microscopic algae; sea hares (Aplysiidae); 1 other small family.

      Order Notaspidea

 Shell and gill usually present; no parapodia (extensions of foot); sperm groove open; shell prominent, reduced, or hidden by mantle; 2 families.

      Order Sacoglossa

 One file of radular teeth; sperm duct a closed tube; shell reduced to bivalved (Juliidae); many feed by sucking juices out of algae; several families with uncertain limits.

      Order Thecosomata

 Shell present; pelagic ciliary feeders; no gill; 6 families.

      Order Gymnosomata

 Shell absent; no mantle cavity; complicated feeding mechanisms; pelagic carnivores; 7 families.

      Order Nudibranchia (nudibranch)

 Sea slugs without shell, mantle cavity, osphradium, or internal gill; many feed on sessile animals; few swimmers (family Tethyidae); highly colourful, often conspicuous.

      Subclass Pulmonata (pulmonate)

 Mantle cavity altered into a pulmonary sac; no gills or operculum; 1 auricle of heart anterior to ventricle; hermaphroditic; shell spiral to limpetlike, often reduced to a fragment hidden by mantle; mainly terrestrial or freshwater, few marine; about 28,000 species.

      Superorder Systellommatophora

 Mantle cavity absent; anal and usually nephridial opening at posterior; male gonopore behind right tentacle; female gonopore middle of right side; sole of foot narrow; no shell; 2 pairs of retractile, or invaginable, tentacles; marine (Onchidiidae), terrestrial and herbivorous (Veronicellidae), or terrestrial and carnivorous (Rathouisiidae); about 200 species.

      Superorder Basommatophora

 Mantle cavity present; eyes at base of 1 pair of tentacles; male and female gonopore separate, usually on right side of body; shell conical to patelliform; mostly freshwater but a few land and marine taxa; about 1,000 species. (No agreement exists concerning suprafamilial classification of the Basommatophora. The following superfamilies, though not grouped into formal orders and suborders, are listed in order of increasing specialization.)

      Superfamily Patelliformia

 Brackish water or marine limpets with (Siphonariidae) gill-like structures or with a lung (Gadinidae).

      Superfamily Amphibolacea

 Operculum present; shell conical; with pulmonary cavity; brackish water; burrow in sand; 1 family.

      Superfamily Ellobiacea

 Conical shells; pulmonary chamber; in tidal zone or salt flats, under rocks in spray zone, or completely terrestrial; 2 families.

      Superfamily Lymnaeacea

 Small to large, spiral-shelled snails of ponds, lakes, and rivers; 1 limpet group (Lancidae) and larger typical group (Lymnaeidae).

      Superfamily Ancylacea

 Limpets (Ancylidae), ramshorns (Planorbidae), and pond snails (Physidae); all restricted to freshwater habitats.

      Superorder Stylommatophora

 Mantle cavity a pulmonary sac; gonopores with common opening on right side or at most narrowly separated; shell conical to vestigial, heavily to weakly calcified; eyes at tips of upper (usually) tentacles; terrestrial; about 26,800 species.

      Order Orthurethra

 Pore of ureter opening into mantle cavity (part of the viscera) near anterior margin of lung after ureter passes forward from anterior kidney margin; about 6,000 species.

      Superfamily Achatinellacea

 Minute to medium-sized Pacific land snails with multicuspid radular denticles; many Hawaiian species highly coloured and variable.

      Superfamilies Cionellacea and Pupillacea

 Minute leaf-litter to arboreal snails, occasionally (Enidae) large; shells often with denticles in the aperture; 10 families.

      Superfamily Partulacea

 Small, generally arboreal snails found on high volcanic islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, a few in Melanesia.

      Order Mesurethra

 Ureter represented by lateral opening of very short kidney, pore of ureter opening near or behind middle of mantle cavity; about 1,500 species.

      Superfamily Clausiliacea

 Elongated shells of West Indian shore salt-spray zone (Cerionidae) or Andean mountains of South America and Eurasia (Clausiliidae).

      Superfamily Strophocheilacea

 Large helicoidal to elongated shells of South America (Strophocheilidae) or southwestern Africa (Dorcasiidae).

      Order Sigmurethra

 Ureter originates near anterior margin of kidney, follows backward to posterior end, then reflexes forward along hindgut to open alongside anus; position greatly altered in sluglike forms; about 18,000 species.

      Suborder Holopodopes

 A group of 4 superfamilies.

      Superfamily Achatinacea

 Besides the giant African snail, 4 families, including many species spread by commerce throughout the world.

      Superfamilies Streptaxacea and Rhytidacea

 Carnivorous snails and slugs (4 families) in most tropical areas, plus the herbivorous Acavidae of Australia, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar.

      Superfamily Bulimulacea

 Large, often arboreal snails of Melanesia and Neotropica (Bulimulidae); long, cylindrical snails of West Indies and Central America (Urocoptidae).

      Suborder Aulacopoda

 A group of 3 superfamilies.

      Superfamily Succineacea

 A problematic group including amber snails (Succineidae), which inhabit swamps and damp areas, and peculiar slugs from the South Pacific (Athoracophoridae).

      Superfamily Arionacea

 A group possessing marginal teeth of radula with squarish basal plates and 1 to several cusps; small litter or tree snails mainly in Southern Hemisphere (Endodontidae); slugs (Arionidae and Philomycidae) in the Northern Hemisphere.

      Superfamily Limacacea

 Marginal teeth of radula with narrow, lengthened basal plates, usually unicuspid; zonitid snails with smooth shells and many sluglike species, common in wet, tropical areas and in temperate regions; about 12 families, including limacid and milacid slugs.

      Suborder Holopoda

 A group of 3 superfamilies.

      Superfamily Polygyracea

 Common woodland snails of eastern North America (Polygyridae), plus a Neotropical group (Thysanophoridae) and a relict group of Asia (Corillidae).

      Superfamily Oleacinacea

 Carnivorous (Oleaciniidae) and herbivorous (Sagdidae) snails of the Neotropical region.

      Superfamily Helicacea

 Land snails without (Oreohelicidae and Camaenidae) or with (Bradybaenidae, Helminthoglyptidae, and Helicidae) accessory glands on the genitalia; dominant land snails in most regions, including the edible snails of Europe (Helicidae).

G. Alan Solem

Additional Reading

Vera Fretter and Alastair Graham, British Prosobranch Molluscs: Their Functional Anatomy and Ecology (1962), provides essential reference material on the gastropod class. Libbie Henrietta Hyman, The Invertebrates, vol. 6, Mollusca I (1967), contains a classic summary of gastropods. An introduction to land snail systematics and biology is found in M.P. Kerney and R.A.D. Cameron, A Field Guide to the Land Snails of Britain and North-West Europe (1979). W.F. Ponder (ed.), Prosobranch Phylogeny (1988), is a summary by a number of researchers. Vera Fretter and J. Peake (eds.), Pulmonates, 2 vol. in 3 (1975–79), examines this subclass in detail—see especially the essay by A. Solem, “Classification of the Land Mollusca,” in vol. 2A, pp. 49–97, which provides an outline of taxa. Another source is Roger N. Hughes, A Functional Biology of Marine Gastropods (1986).

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