Man can meet mollusks anywhere. This class includes snails, and mussels, and oysters, and squids, and octopuses. It is also noteworthy that mollusks rank second in number after arthropods. Today there are about 75-100 thousand species of them in the world. Each mollusk has amazing features, and some facts about them may even be shocking.
Scientists were able to establish that the shell of the bivalve mollusk has daily traces of growth in the form of lines. If you count them, you will get the number of days and months in a year. Such experiments showed that there were more days per year in the Paleozoic than now. This information has been confirmed by both astronomers and geophysicists.
As scientists managed to find out, the oldest mollusk, which was caught by a man, lived for about 405 years and it was he who received the status of the oldest marine inhabitant.
1. Translated from Latin "mollusk" means "soft".
2. In Cuba, we managed to find an unusually interesting mollusc, which emitted light when irritated. Spanish and Cuban explorers discovered it while working on the islands to study the underwater world of Macaronesia in 2000.
3. The largest mollusk was the one that weighed about 340 kilograms. He was caught in Japan in 1956.
4. "Hell Vampire" is the only mollusk in the world that spends its own life at a depth of 400 to 1000 meters and in the presence of low oxygen content in the water.
5. Many clams with shells produce pearls, but only bivalve pearls are considered valuable. The oyster pearls Pinctada mertensi and Pinctada margaritifera are the best.
6. On the east coast of the United States there are shellfish that have a unique appearance. Eastern Emerald Elysia is incredibly similar to a green leaf that floats on water. In addition, this creature carries out the process of photosynthesis, similar to how plants do it.
7. The main food for molluscs is plankton, which is filtered by them in the water.
8. The age of each mollusk can be determined by the number of rings on the shell valve. Each ring may differ from the previous one due to the peculiarities of nutrition, temperature, environmental conditions and the amount of oxygen in the water space.
9. The noise of the sea in souvenir molluscs is the noise of the environment, which begins to resonate with the cavities of the shell. A similar effect occurs without the use of a mollusk shell. It is enough just to put a mug or bent palm to your ear.
10. Bivalve molluscs are locomotive. Scallops, for example, with rhythmic squeezing of the valves and ejection of a stream of water, are able to swim long distances. So they hide from sea stars, which are considered their main enemies.
11. Predatory mollusks of rapana in the 40s of the XX century on the bottoms of ships got from the Sea of Japan to the Black Sea. From that moment on, they multiplied so much that they were able to crowd out mussels, oysters and other competitors.
12. On the territory of the Nazca desert, which was previously known as a forest, it was possible to find empty shells of mollusks.
13. In ancient times, molluscs were used to create purple and sea silk.
14. By changing their own shell, molluscs can maintain their body temperature, not allowing it to rise to a lethal threshold of 38 degrees above zero. This also happens when the air is heated to 42 degrees.
15. Molluscs can actively move through the sea, as a result of which they secrete a lot of mucus, which becomes the main weapon against attacks by predators.
16. The ammonite molluscs, which have become extinct long ago, were up to 2 meters long. Until now, their shell is sometimes found by people in the sand and on the seabed.
17. Some molluscs, like slugs and snails, are involved in pollination of vegetation.
18. The ring octopus mollusc, which lives near the Australian coast, is beautiful enough, but its bite can be fatal. The poison of such a creature poisons about 5-7 thousand people.
19. It is also interesting that octopuses are intelligent mollusks. They know how to distinguish the shapes of different geometric shapes, and also get used to people and sometimes become tame. This type of molluscs are very clean. They always take care of the cleanliness of their own home and wash away all the dirt with a stream of water they release. They put waste outside into a "pile".
20. Some species of molluscs have small legs, which they need to move around. In cephalopods, for example, the leg is located directly next to the tentacles. Some molluscs also have a shell on their bodies, which protects this creature from attack.
21. In spite of everything, some molluscs have intelligence. For example, these include octopuses.
22. The ability to reproduce anywhere is a unique ability of molluscs. For them there is no difference: the earth's surface or the water environment.
23. There are many shellfish in the world. Some of them are tiny and parasitic. Others are huge in size and can be up to several meters long.
24. To provide themselves with protection, many cephalopods begin to release an ink cloud, then swim away under its cover. Because of the darkness prevailing in the aquatic environment, the deep-sea mollus "hellish vampire" resorts to another trick for its own salvation. With the tips of its tentacles, this creature releases bioluminescent slime, which creates a sticky cloud of glowing blue balls. This light curtain can shock a predator, allowing the mollusk to escape quickly.
25. The mollusk Arctica islandica, which lives in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, can live up to 500 years. This is the longest-lived creature on the planet.
26. Shellfish are incredibly powerful. If a person had such strength as theirs, then people weighing 50 kg could easily lift a load with a mass of 0.5 tons vertically upwards.
27. Gastropods, in which the shell has a turbo-helical shape, have a liver in the last turns of the helix.
28. On an industrial scale, shellfish farming was organized for the first time in Japan in 1915. The essence of this method was to place particles in the shell, around which the mollusk could build up the mineral. This type of method was invented by Kokichi Mikimoto, who was later able to obtain a patent for his own invention.
29. The record holder among invertebrate molluscs is the giant squid. Its body length can be 20 meters. His eyes reach 70 centimeters in diameter.
30. Molluscs octopuses, which are also called octopuses, are the only creatures in the world that live in water and have a beak like a bird.
