Reporting the diet of recently extinct or very rare taxa, only known by a few museum specimens, is challenging. This study uses X-ray microtomography, a non-destructive investigation method, to obtain the first data about feeding behaviours in the Montserrat galliwasp (Diploglossus montisserrati) by scanning one of the two specimens known to date. The scans revealed the occurrence of shell frag...

The freshwater aquarium snail (Ampullaria spp.) was demonstrated to carry as many as 10(8) viable mesophilic bacteria per g of meat plus shell. Some 16 genera of bacteria were identified, with gram negatives predominating. Enrichment culture techniques enabled the isolation of salmonellae from 24 to 42 lots of 200 g each. The salmonellae comprised eight different serotypes, including Salmonella...

The periwinkle Littorina littorea exhibits morphological variation among southern New England populations that appear to be genetically continuous. In dense populations, individuals have relatively elongate shells in comparison to individuals in sparse populations, which have rounder, globose shells. We experimentally demonstrate that this shell variation is a function of snail growth rate. Rap...

The status of species currently assigned to the Southeast Asian Elephant Pupinid snail genus Pollicaria Gould, 1856 is reassessed. Shell, radular and reproductive morphology are investigated and analysed with reference to karyotype patterns previously reported and to distribution patterns among the species. Six previously described species are recognised: Pollicaria gravida (Benson, 1856), Poll...

The marine cone snail Conus gloriamaris is an iconic species. For over two centuries, its shell was one of the most prized and valuable natural history objects in the world. Today, cone snails have attracted attention for their remarkable venom components. Many conotoxins are proving valuable as research tools, drug leads, and drugs. In this article, we present the venom gland transcriptome of ...

Organisms that are durophagous, hard prey consumers, have a diversity of tooth forms. To determine why we see this variation, we tested whether some tooth forms break shells better than others. We measured the force needed with three series of aluminium tooth models, which varied in concavity and the morphology of a stress concentrating cusp, to break a shell. We created functionally identical ...