Cone Snail Research Paper

Biologists Robin Seeley conducted an experiment in which she gathered periwinkle snail shells on Appledore Island and measures their thickness. The time period in which she has found the snails was before the inhabitation of the European green crab. Eighty years later, the shell thickness of the snails were measured again and recorded. This time, the inhabitation of the european green crab has increased significantly and the thickness of the snail shells has increased. She has concluded that when the crabs arrived on the island, they began to eat the thin shelled snails because their shells were easier to crack.

The removal of predators such as excessive fishing and shell collecting, allowing populations of the Crown of Thorns Starfish to increase beyond natural levels. Predators such as the giant triton snail, sweetlips emperor feed to some extent feed on crown-of-thorns starfish. Juvenile starfish are likely to be eaten by their predator fish about six months after they begin feeding on corals. If numbers of

First, this mainly due to the fact that O’ahu tree snails have unique colorful shells, and as a result, many people are removing these snails and using them for scientific studies or cases (Kay and Hadfield, 1972). In other words, the snails are being taken away from their natural habitat and kept in laboratories for scientific studies. However, most humans are not aware that they are disturbing their environment and having a negative impact on the overall population of Achatinella mustelina. Moreover, many shell collectors and nature enthusiast in the late 1800s and early 1900s collected these Achatinella mustelina because of their colorful, flamboyant and patterned shells which in return negatively impacted the number of these specimen (Hadfield 1986, Hadfield et al. 1993). For this, shell collectors and nature fanatics have to be aware and appreciative of the impact and effect that wildlife animals have on the environment as well as the ecosystem as a whole. In other words, when human forces disturb a species habitat or environment, they are negatively impacting the ecosystem thus increasing the extinction rate of endangered

• Conch: name give to a number of sea snails, also known by their shell

The molluscs will be cleaned by water before preservation. A toothbrush and knife will be used to remove any stains and debris from the shell surface. The visceral mass of the molluscs will be removed first and the shell that contain hermit crab are will not counted. The clean molluscs will be arranged by each quadrat and the image of the group shell will be took by camera before sealing them into the zip-lock bag with 95% alcohol solution with labelled. This is because the color of the shell might be changed from the original in the alcohol solution. Indirectly, the sample identification will be difficult.

Chelonia mydas, also known as the green sea turtle,is one of the seven remaining sea turtles in the planet. Though most sea turtles are characterized by its large, streamlined shells, the green sea turtle gains its name from the olive green colour of its skin, which is made up of fat and cartilage, not their shell. In fact, the hard, bony, and scaly shell of the green sea turtle is a darkish brown. Their oval shell can also be a light shade of brown or yellow. The narrow, wing-like flippers in these turtles as a replacement for forearms has made them better adapted to the aquatic conditions of their habitat. These flippers have one visible claw at the tip, used for protection from predators. To compensate for the lack of teeth in these species,

This internet article, found in Science Daily is about an exceptionally odd animal that would go to great lengths to stay alive. In the University of Victoria, a biologist called Louise Page, studied Melibe Leonina, a unique eastern pacific ocean sea slug. Through her extensive research, Page discovers the extraordinary animals ability to survive by cutting itself. This marine snail species that has no shell is known as a nudibranch. Its various differences is viewed through their shapes, sizes, and colors but what really separates it from other creatures would be the Melibes appendages.

Echinoderms are invertebrates, and the majority of them have spiny skin. This group of invertebrates includes starfish, sand dollars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers, although these are just a few of them. There are actually about 6,000 different species of echinoderms. All echinoderms have one thing in common. They all have radial symmetry. This means that they all have appendages that point outward like the spokes on a bicycle wheel. All echinoderms live in water, whether it is saltwater or freshwater. If you examine the underside of a jellyfish, you can see the hundreds of tiny legs arranged in rows along each of the appendages. Crabs, eels, larger starfish, octopi, fish, and seabirds are all predators of echinoderms. Sea stars

Green Sea turtles are very small when they are born, but as they mature, they become the largest hard-shelled sea turtles. These turtles do are not named for having a green shell, but for having green skin. Their shell is a brown or olive color. The organisms that make up this species are usually herbivores, but are omnivores while they are young. They eat seaweed and other plants or algae found in the ocean. Green sea turtles have serrated jagged edged jaws, which they have adapted for a vegetarian diet made up of eating of seagrasses, plants, and algae found in the ocean. When the turtles are not born yet, they are in a nesting habitat. The mother buries her eggs in the sand along a beach. Once they hatch, they head for the ocean and live ocean habitats. The ocean is extremely salty, and can be dangerous to species who are have not adapted to that environment. Green sea turtles are unique to the ocean environment because they “...have a salt

Anatomy. New Zealand mud snails are very small and look like a typical snail. They only grow to be about five millimeters long. These snails, like all other snails, are gastropods. Snails are also hermaphrodites. A hermaphrodite is a

They occur sub tidally and intertidally (Malham, et al., 2012) and are found widely distributed on tidal flats and on open coasts (Reise, 2003) where they burrow to just below the surface of the sediment (Richardson, et al., 1993). Cerastoderma edule are opportunistic filter feeders (Rueda & Smaal, 2002) and collect food particles with its siphons which are exposed at the sediment surface. This allows C. edule to collect prey whilst been relatively safe from predators and the ever changing

abalones are gastropods class mollusk of the animalia kingdom. abalones are also edible, large, and a type of snail. the most comprehensive treatment of the family considers 56 spices valid with 18 additional sub spices. The shells of the abalones have low open spiral structure and are characterized by several open respiratory pores in a row near the shells outer

It is conceptualised that digenean trematodes were primitively parasites of molluscs; they only later learned to utilise vertebrate hosts as a result of evolutionary host switching (Muller and Wakelin, 2002; Lockyer et al., 2004). Nevertheless, transmission of vector-borne parasites is eminently dependent on the degree of vector susceptibility. In a vector-parasite system, compatibility occurs when the parasite is capable of infecting and being transmitted through the vector and this compatibility is often at the specie or strain level for both parasite and vector (Lockyer et al., 2004; Perrin et al., 2013). In contrast to the non-schistosome molluscan vectors such as Lymnaea truncatula and Physa acuta, higher levels of calcium (Ca2+) and linoleate in Biomphalaria and Bulinus vectors make them a suitable host

Trophic cascades are found in ecological communities and directly impact the interactions of the marine intertidal species Hemigrapsus sanguineus (invasive crab), Littorina littorea (snail), Fucus distichus

Organisms that aestivate appear to be in a fairly "light" state of dormancy, as their physiological state can be rapidly reversed, and the organism can quickly return to a normal state. A study done on Otala lactea, a snail native to parts of Europe and Northern Africa shows that they can wake from their dormant state within ten minutes of being introduced to a wetter environment. Fossil records show that the act of aestivating may be several hundred million years old.