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Mollusks

The molluscs or mollusks are the large and diverse phylum Mollusca, which includes a variety of familiar creatures well-known for their decorative shells or as seafood. These range from tiny snails, clams, and abalone to the octopus and squid (which are considered the most intelligent invertebrates). There are some 70,000 described species within this phylum.

The giant squid, which until recently had not been observed alive in its adult form is the largest invertebrate although it is likely that the Colossal Squid is even larger. The scientific study of molluscs is called malacology.

Molluscs are triploblastic protostomes. The principal body cavity is a blood-filled hemocoel. It is unknown whether they have a true coelom (eucoelom); any coelomic cavities have been reduced to vestiges around the hearts, gonads, and metanephridia (kidney-like organs). The body is often divided into a head, with eyes or tentacles, a muscular foot and a visceral mass housing the organs.

Molluscs have a mantle, which is a fold of the outer skin lining the shell, and a muscular foot that is used for motion. Many molluscs have their mantle produce a calcium carbonate external shell and their gill extracts oxygen from the water and disposes waste. All species of the phylum Mollusca have a complete digestive tract that starts from the mouth to the anus. Many have a feeding structure, the radula, mostly composed of chitin. Radulae are diverse within the Mollusca, ranging from structures used to scrape algae off rocks, to the harpoon-like structures of cone snails. Cephalopods (squid, octopuses, cuttlefish) also possess a chitinous beak. Unlike the closely related annelids, molluscs lack body segmentation.
Development passes through one or two trochophore stages, one of which (the veliger) is unique to the group. These suggest a close relationship between the molluscs and various other protostomes, notably the Annelids.

Classification:
There are nine classes of mollusks, eight still living and one known only from fossils:

• Class Caudofoveata (deep-sea wormlike creatures; 70 known species); now generally recognized as a subclass of Aplacophora.
• Class Aplacophora (solenogasters, deep-sea wormlike creatures; 250 species)
• Class Polyplacophora (chitons; 600 species, rocky marine shorelines)
• Class Monoplacophora (deep-sea limpet-like creatures; 11 living species)
• Class Bivalvia (also Pelecypoda) (clams, oysters, scallops, mussels; 8,000 species)
• Class Scaphopoda (tusk shells; 350 species, all marine)
• Class Gastropoda (nudibranchs, snails and slugs, limpets, sea hares; sea angel, sea butterfly, Sea Lemon; estimated 40,000 - 150,000 species)
• Class Cephalopoda (squids, octopuses, nautilus, cuttlefish; 786 species, all marine)
• Class † Rostroconchia (fossils; probably more than 1,000 species; probable ancestors of bivalves)

Many of these are excellent food sources and are considered gourmet foods and delicacies in many parts of the world.

• Breaded Fried Oysters

• How to Cook Oysters

• Stewed Oysters


See:
• Cooking
• Olive Oil
• Sydney Smith's salad dressing
• Anchovy
• Bisque
• Iron Chef
• Foie Gras
• Asparagus
• Shrimp

• Oysters
• Mollusk
• Seafood
• Ceviche of Shrimp and Sea Bass

• Coffee: Historic Beverage and Great Gift
• Recipe: Grilled Tuna Steak 1
• Grilling Tuna Steak for a Simple Gourmet Meal

• Julia Child Gourmet Cook
• Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School

• Cuisine
• List of American Foods
• Cuisine of the United States

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mollusk".