Eye Contact with a Snail
by Jennie Breeze
Title
Eye Contact with a Snail
Artist
Jennie Breeze
Medium
Photograph - Original Img_8416
Description
Snail, Helix pomatial, is a common name that is applied most often to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs.Land snails have eyes on the edge of the tentacles that jut out of their heads. However, the common name "snail" is also applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shell that is large enough for the animal to retract completely into. When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, it includes not just land snails but also thousands of species of sea snails and freshwater snails. Occasionally a few other molluscs that are not actually gastropods, such as the Monoplacophora, which superficially resemble small limpets, may also informally be referred to as "snails". Snails are animals and are not insects as they are classified as molluscs because of the hard shell that protects their bodies. This group comprises of slugs, clams, oysters, octopuses, sea slugs, cuttlefish, squid and the nautilus. What differentiates them from insects is the fact that they are soft bodied with either one large foot, or numerous tentacles and they have a shell, or a remnant of a shell inside they're body. Snails can be found in a very wide range of environments, including ditches, deserts, and the abyssal depths of the sea. Although land snails may be more familiar to people, marine snails constitute the majority of snail species, and have much greater diversity and a greater biomass. Land snails and sea snails also differ in how they breathe. The land snail breathes through the use of its lung, which is located in the mantle cavity.
Uploaded
July 16th, 2013
Embed
Share