How do mollusks breathe?
You have certainly savored them in the most disparate recipes for appetizers , first or second courses. But how much do you know about mollusks?
In this article, after having presented the main physical and nutritional characteristics and classes of these animals, we will see how do mollusks breathe: before finding out, why don’t you try to guess?
What are mollusks?
Mollusks are invertebrate animals that live in brackish water, fresh water or on land. By number of species, they belong to the second phylum of the animal kingdom, after insects.
The term mollusk refers to the consistency of the body of these animals which, without bones, are soft. To protect their body there is often a shell (internal or external), generally made of calcareous substance.
The body of mollusks is generally divided into the cephalic region, visceral sac, foot and mantle (also called pallium). Depending on the type of mollusk, these parts have different characteristics.
Finally, as regards the nutritional profile, mollusks are a generally low-calorie food, with a high protein content and considerable mineral content (such as iron, selenium and zinc) and vitamin B12.
If you want to taste excellent quality mollusks , such as clams, mussels , scallops, razor clams, cockles , snails, lupins, oysters, murex, hearts and many others, you can choose the Nieddittas ones , healthy, safe and able to add to your recipes all the flavor of the sea from which they come.
The different classes and species of molluscs
There are almost 100,000 species of mollusks, with different shapes, characteristics and habitats. It would be impossible to list all the existing species in this article, but we can at least list the main classes and, within these, mention some particularly well-known species.
The three main classes of mollusks are:
- Bivalves , characterized by a shell made up of two valves, like mussels, oysters or clams;
- Gastropods , whose shell is often spiral-shaped and the foot is particularly robust . For example, snails and snails are gastropod mollusks ;
- Cephalopods , complex and evolved mollusks ,exclusively marine. Some examples are octopus, squid or cuttlefish.
In addition to these three best-known classes, we also mention:
- The polyplacophorans, primitive mollusks with a flat and symmetrical body;
- The caudofoveates, without a shell and equipped with a pedal shield to move;
- Scaphopods , similar to gastropods, but with an elongated body and cylindrical shell;
- The monoplacophorans, of which few species still exist. They have a circular foot and a shape that generally resembles that of a limpet.
How do mollusks breathe?
Now that we know better these particular animals with their most diverse types and characteristics, let’s finally discover how their breathing works. How do mollusks breathe?
Being so diverse, it is not surprising that the respiration of mollusks also varies depending on the species and the environment in which they live (saltwater, freshwater or land).
The most common type of respiration for mollusks occurs via gills or ctenids (typical breathing organ in the case of aquatic mollusks) or a single lung in the case of terrestrial molluscs or, in some cases, freshwater molluscs, as is the case of some snails and land snails .
The respiratory organs are generally found in the pallial cavity , which is the space between the pallium (the mantle) and the shell. If the respiratory organ is the lung , as is the case with pulmonate gastropods (for example the aforementioned snails or snails), this is made up of the mantle tissue, capable of communicating with the outside through an opening called the pneumostome. Non-pulmonate gastropods are instead equipped with pallial gills , with a different shape from the previously mentioned more common ctenids.
