The class Gastropoda or the gastropods, also previously known as gasteropods, or univalves, and more commonly known as snails and slugs, are the most diversified class in the phylum of mollusks, with (60,000-75,000) to 80,000 known living species.
There are 409 recent families of gastropods, but fossils have been classified as showing 202 further families This class of animals is second only to insects in its number of known species.
The class is striking in its extraordinary diversification of habitats. Representatives live in gardens, in woodland, in deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers and lakes; in estuaries, mudflats, the rocky intertidal, the sandy subtidal, in the abyssal depths of the oceans, and numerous other ecological niches, including parasitic ones.
This class includes very very large numbers of species of marine snails and sea slugs, as well as freshwater snails and freshwater limpets, and the terrestrial snails and slugs.
Although the name “snail” can be, and often is, applied to all the members of this class, very commonly this word is restricted to those species which have an external shell large enough that the soft parts can withdraw completely into it. Those gastropods without a shell, and those which have only a very reduced or internal shell, are often known as slugs.
The marine shelled species of gastropod include edible species such as abalone, conches, periwinkles, whelks, and numerous other sea snails which have coiled seashells. There are also a number of families of species such as all the various limpets, where the shell is coiled only in the larval stage, and is a simple conical structure after that.
Above all of my knowledge about it, i have question for you all.
In the middles of 2008, i was researching about Bioindicator Poluttion of Tanjung Emas Harbour Semarang. The research using “trawl” to collect data of macrozoobenthos that living here. The gasropoda is one of them which i was collect.
For my “undergraduate” make some species being in unidentification, can you all help me to identified those? It’s open for you who know the link to share my “identify”. Thanks Before.
p.s. the unidentified species below
Kita tahu ada 3 (tiga) ekosistem yang fungsinya sangat penting yaitu terumbu karang, mangrove, dan padang lamun yang ketiganya merupakan ekosistem pesisir yang memiliki multifungsi. Ketiga ekosistem tersebut dapat berperan dalam menyediakan makanan untuk ikan (feeding ground), sebagai tempat bertelur atau pengasuhan (nursery ground) dan tempat pemijahan (spawning ground), serta juga tempat penyerapan karbondioksida (CO2). Fungsi yang terakhir ini, menjelaskan adanya kaitan fungsi dengan maraknya isu pemanasan global (Global Warming).
