25 Amazing Facts About Molluscs | Amazing Facts 4U
- Molluscs are invertebrates that include animals such as squid, octopuses, snails, oysters etc. There are an estimated 100,000 species of molluscs making them second largest phylum in the animal kingdom, next to only the Phylum Arthropoda (Insects).
- Molluscs can be found almost everywhere in the deepest ocean floor and also in freshwater and land.
- Over 1,100 species of molluscs have been discovered living deeper than one mile (1600m) below the surface of the ocean. Ewig’s Gastroverm lives at an ocean depth of about 20,000 feet, or nearly four miles (over 4500m!).
- The body of most molluscs consists of two parts: a head foot and a visceral mass. The head foot of a mollusc is an elongated, soft structure that encompasses an anterior head and an elongated foot. The head has a pair of eyes, a mouth and sensory and nervous structures. The foot is used for locomotion and for attaching onto surfaces. The visceral mass is located on top of the head-foot and contains internal organs that perform the functions of digestion, circulation, reproduction and excretion.
- A layer of tissue called the mantle covers the visceral mass of a mollusc. It secretes a hard shell that covers and protects the visceral mass providing the mollusc with protection from predators and from harsh environmental conditions. Molluscs keep adding to this shell and keep it under repair for its entire life.
- Most molluscs are capable of making pearls when foreign substances enter their shell which is coated with a shelly material. Some molluscs can grow pearls as big as golf balls. The older and bigger the pearl the more valuable it becomes.
- It’s amazing that an oyster can take about five years just to make one pearl.
- Amazingly the oyster is usually ambisexual. It begins life as a male and then becomes a female. It may go back and forth many times.
- Amazing Fact is that out of the 200 million eggs a female oyster produces only a handful grows to adulthood.
- It’s amazing that giant squid eyes are the largest in the animal kingdom about the size of the human head and they can see deep inside sea up to 1000 Feet.
- Amazing fact is the giant squid is the largest creature without a backbone. It weighs up to 2.5 tons and grows up to 60 feet long.
- The Humboldt squid can turn itself blood-red. Because this wavelength of light doesn’t travel far underwater, a dark red squid is amazingly invisible.
- The giant clam is a species of molluscs that can grow to weights in excess of 200 Kg and diameters of more than 47 inches. Giant clams inhabit coral reefs throughout the South Pacific and Indian oceans.
- Since octopi have no bones, their bodies are incredibly flexible. Amazingly they can squeeze through openings not much bigger than their eyeballs.
- Amazing fact is a snail can sleep for 3 years.
- Snails rely mainly on their sense of touch and smell when finding food because they have very poor eyesight. Snails also cannot hear.
- Amazingly a snail can travel over a razor blade without harm because it secretes colourless sticky fluid to crawl along.
- The common garden snail (Helix aspersa) can only travel about two feet in three minutes. At that rate, it would travel one mile in five and one-half days.
- Many land snails can lift ten times their own weight up a vertical surface.
- A snail can have amazing 25,000 teeth laid along 135 rows on their tongue.
- World’s largest snail is the Australian trumpet, a sea species from the shores of northern and western Australia which can grow up to 30 inches in shell length. The largest land snail known is the Giant African Land Snail. It can weigh up to 900g and attain a length of 16 inches from head to tail.
- The smallest known snail shell is the Ammonicera rota measuring only 0.02 inches in diameter. Fifty of them laid end to end would measure one inch!
- Cone Snail is also known as the “cigarette snail”. Amazing fact is one drop of venom from it is enough to end 20 human lives. You die within minutes and there is no antivenom.
- Amazingly snails may survive being eaten by birds as they can pass through a bird’s digestive tract unharmed.
- The oldest form of money known is that of the seashell. Many cultures throughout history used the shell as a form of barter and trade.
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