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There
are between 50,000 and 200,000 mollusk species alive
in the world today. Estimates vary depending on who's
guessing the number of undiscovered species!
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Mollusk
evolution began more than 500 million years ago, during
the Cambrian period.
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Paleontologists
use fossil shells to tell what the climate might have
been like millions of years ago. Comparing fossil shells
with their living relatives that only live in cold or
warm climates can give some clues.
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Some
oysters may shed over one million eggs in a season! Only
about one out of every million of these oyster eggs lives
to adulthood.
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Female
cowries sit on top of their eggs to protect them from
enemies!
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Some
oysters alternate their gender: Male one year, female
the next!
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A
snail grows a bigger shell by getting calcium carbonate
and other ingredients from the water and food it eats,
then uses its fleshy mantle to add the new materials to
the shell.
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When
a hermit crab needs a bigger shell, it seeks a larger
empty snail shell and moves in! Without a shell provided
by a snail, it's naked!
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A
young abalone that eats red seaweed produces a red shell!
Color pigments from food can affect the shell color of
some mollusks.
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Nudibranch
is a mollusk family that doesn’t have a shell. Most
are beautifully colored, too!
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Ninety-nine
percent of all snail species have shell whorls that coil
in a clockwise direction.
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Scallops
have dozens of eyes. They help a scallop to see predators,
so it will know when to swim away or clam-up!
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Carrier
shells attach other shells or stones to their own shell
for protection and camouflage.
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Shells
have been used throughout history for art, jewelry, money,
scientific study, buttons, ink, road gravel and chicken
feed (for stronger egg shells!).
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Some
cone shells obtain food by harpooning, paralyzing and
eating fish!
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We
hear the sound of the seashore inside large shells because
the shell echoes surrounding sounds, jumbling and amplifying
them.
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Many
land snails can lift ten times their own weight up a vertical
surface.
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Mr.
Thomas Green of La Plata, Maryland, consumed 350 edible
snails in eight and a half minutes.
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Mike
Racz in Invercargill, New Zealand, opened 100 oysters
in 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
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The
ocean quahog Arctica islandica can live to be 220 years
old!
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The
deepsea bivalve Tindaria callistiformis grows only one-third
of an inch (8.4mm) in 100 years!
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Boring
clams can sink a ship! One of them, the misnamed Teredo
Shipworm, earned its name by ruining wooden boats. It's
actually a clam, and can bore through a six-inch thick
plank of wood in less than one year!
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Many
species of snails and clams breathe through a snorkel,
or siphon, when they bury themselves in the mud or sand.
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Most
mollusks are capable of making pearls when foreign substances
enter their shells! They coat the foreign substance with
shelly material.
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It
takes about two years to grow a pearl. Some clams can
grow pearls as big as golf balls in ten years!
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