Unit 1: What is Biology?
Unit 2: Ecology
Unit 3: The Life of a Cell
Unit 4: Genetics
Unit 5: Change Through Time
Unit 6: Viruses, Bacteria, Protists, and Fungi
Unit 7: Plants
Unit 8: Invertebrates
Unit 9: Vertebrates
Unit 1: What is Biology?
Chapter 1: Biology: The Study of Life
Unit 2: Ecology
Chapter 2: Principles of Ecology
Chapter 3: Communities and Biomes Chapter 4: Population Biology
Chapter 5: Biological Diversity and Conservation
Unit 3: The Life of a Cell
Chapter 6: The Chemistry of Life
Chapter 7: A View of the Cell
Unit 4: Genetics
Chapter 10: Mendel and Meiosis
Chapter 11: DNA and Genes
Chapter 12: Patterns of Heredity and Human Genetics
Chapter 13: Genetic Technology
Unit 5: Change Through Time
Chapter 14: The History of Life
Chapter 15: The Theory of Evolution Chapter 16: Primate Evolution
Unit 6: Viruses, Bacteria, Protists, and Fungi
Chapter 18: Viruses and Bacteria Chapter 19: Protists
Chapter 20: Fungi
Unit 7: Plants
Chapter 21: What Is a Plant?
Chapter 22: The Diversity of Plants
Unit 8: Invertebrates
Chapter 25: What Is an Animal?
Chapter 26: Sponges, Cnidarians, Flatworms, and
Roundworms
Chapter 27: Mollusks and Segmented Worms
Chapter 28: Arthropods
Chapter 29: Echinoderms and Invertebrate Chordates
Unit 9: Vertebrates
Chapter 30: Fishes and Amphibians Chapter 31: Reptiles and Birds
Chapter 32: Mammals
Chapter 33: Animal Behavior
Unit 10: The Human Body
Chapter 34: Protection, Support, and Locomotion Chapter 35: The Digestive and Endocrine Systems Chapter 36: The Nervous System
Chapter 37: Respiration, Circulation, and Excretion Chapter 38: Reproduction and Development
Chapter 39: Immunity from Disease
Invertebrates
What Is an animal?
Sponges, Cnidarians, Flatworms, and Roundworms
Mollusks and Segmented Worms
Arthropods
Chapter 27 Introduction: Mollusks an Segmented Worms
27.1: Mollusks
27.1: Section Check
27.2: Segmented Worms
27.2: Section Check
Chapter 27 Summary
What You’ll Learn
You will distinguish among the classes
of mollusks and segmented worms.
You will compare and contrast the
• Identify the characteristics of mollusks.
Section Objectives:
• Compare the adaptations of gastropod,
• Slugs, snails, squids, and some animals that live in shells in the ocean or on the beach are all mollusks. These organisms belong to the phylum Mollusca.
• Although most
species live in the ocean, others live in freshwater and moist terrestrial habitats.
What is a mollusk?
• Some mollusks have shells, and others, including slugs and squids, are adapted to life without a hard covering.
What is a mollusk?
• All mollusks have bilateral symmetry, a
coelom, a digestive tract with two openings, a muscular foot, and a mantle.
What is a mollusk?
What is a mollusk?
Visceral mass
Mantle ShellFoot Tentacle
Arm
Head Reduced internal shell Mantle
Gut
What is a mollusk?
What is a mollusk?
Visceral mass Mantle
Shell Foot
Head Mantle
Gut Shell
Radula
• Snails, like many mollusks, use a rasping structure called a radula to obtain food.
How mollusks obtain food
How mollusks obtain food
How mollusks obtain food
• Octopuses and squids are predators that use their radulas to tear up the food that they
capture with their tentacles.
• Bivalves do not have radulas; they filter food from the water.
How mollusks obtain food
• Mollusks reproduce sexually and most have separate sexes.
• Many gastropods that live on land, and a few bivalves, are hermaphrodites and produce both eggs and sperm.
Fertilization is internal.
• In most aquatic species, eggs and sperm are released at the same time into the water,
where external fertilization takes place.
Reproduction in mollusks
• Some marine mollusks
have free swimming larvae that propel themselves.
Reproduction in mollusks
Reproduction in mollusks
• Most marine snails and bivalves have another
developmental stage called a veliger in which he
• Molusks have simple nervous systems that coordinate their movement and
behavior.
Nervous control in mollusks
Nervous control in mollusks
• Most mollusks have paired eyes that
range from simple cups that detect
light to the complex eyes of octopuses that have irises, pupils, and retinas similar to the eyes of humans.
Nervous control in mollusks
• Mollusks have a well-developed circulatory system that includes a three-chambered
heart.
Circulation in mollusks
Circulation in mollusks
• In most mollusks, the heart pumps blood through an open circulatory system.
Circulation in mollusks
• Some mollusks, such as octopuses, move nutrients and oxygen through a closed
circulatory system.
Circulation in mollusks
• Most mollusks have respiratory structures called gills.
Respiration in mollusks
Respiration in mollusks
• Gills are specialized parts of the mantle that consist of a system of filamentous
• Mollusks are the oldest known animals to have evolved excretory structures called nephridia.
Excretion in mollusks
Excretion in mollusks
• Wastes are discharged into the mantle cavity, and expelled from the body by the pumping of the gills.
Excretion in mollusks
• Phylum Mollusca is large and diverse.
Diversity of Mollusks
Diversity of Mollusks
• Three mollusk classes—Gastropoda,
• The largest class of mollusks is Gastropoda, or the stomach-footed mollusks.
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
• The name
comes from the way the
animal’s large foot is
positioned
• Shelled gastropods include snails, abalones, conches, periwinkles, whelks, limpets,
cowries, and cones.
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
• Instead of being protected by a shell, the
• Colorful sea slugs, also called
nudibranchs, are protected in another
way.
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
• When certain species of sea slugs feed on jellyfishes, they incorporate the poisonous nematocysts of the jellyfish into their own tissues without causing these cells to
discharge.
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
Gastropods: One-shelled mollusks
• Two-shelled
mollusks such as clams, oysters, and scallops belong to the class Bivalvia. • Most bivalves are
marine, but a few species live in
freshwater habitats.
Bivalves: Two-shelled mollusks
• Bivalves have no distinct head or radula. Most use their large, muscular foot for
burrowing in the mud or sand at the bottom of the ocean or a lake.
Bivalves: Two-shelled mollusks
Bivalves: Two-shelled mollusks
• A ligament, like a hinge, connects their two
shells, called valves;
• One of the main differences between
gastropods and bivalves is that bivalves are filter feeders that obtain food by filtering
small particles from the surrounding water. • Gill cilia beat to draw water in through an
incurrent siphon.
• As water moves over the gills, food and sediments become trapped in mucus.
Bivalves: Two-shelled mollusks
• Cilia that line the gills push food particles to the mouth.
• Large particles, sediment, and anything else that is rejected is transported to the mantle where it is expelled through the excurrent siphon, or to the foot, where it is eliminated from the animal’s body.
Bivalves: Two-shelled mollusks
• This class includes the octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and chambered nautilus.
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
• The only cephalopod with a shell is the
chambered nautilus, but some species, such as the cuttlefish, have a reduced internal
• In cephalopods, the foot has evolved into tentacles with suckers, hooks, or adhesive structures.
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
• Cephalopods swim or walk over the
ocean floor in
pursuit of their prey, capturing it with
• Once tentacles have captured prey, it is brought to the mouth and bitten with beaklike jaws.
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
• Cephalopods have siphons that expel water.
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
• These mollusks can expel water forcefully in any direction, and move quickly by jet
propulsion. Squids can attain speed of 20m per second using this system of movement.
Water in
Water out
• Squids and octopuses also can release a dark fluid to cloud the water.
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Cephalopods: Head-footed mollusks
Which of the following mollusks does NOT have a radula, and why?
Question 1
D. slug C. clam
B. sea snail A. octopus
The answer is C. Clams are filter feeders that do not need a radula to obtain food.
Which of the following is NOT a function of the tentacles of a land snail?
Question 2
D. capturing prey C. moving the eyes B. feeling
A. smelling
Which are the first mollusks you would
expect to be affected by pollution and why?
Question 3
D. squid
C. octopuses B. snails
A. clams
The answer is A. Clams are filter feeders.
They would be most likely to ingest plankton and become polluted. Later, other mollusks like sea snails that prey on clams might ingest the same pollutant when they eat the clams.
Nephridia are organs used for _____.
Question 4
D. excretion C. movement B. respiration A. circulation
The answer is D, excretion.
• Describe the characteristics of segmented
worms and their importance to the survival of these organisms.
Section Objectives:
• Segmented worms are classified in the
phylum Annelida. They include leeches and bristleworms as well as earthworms.
What is a segmented worm?
What is a segmented worm?
• The basic body plan of segmented worms is a tube within a tube.
What is a segmented worm?
What is a segmented worm?
• Food is taken in by the mouth, an
opening in the
anterior end of the worm, and wastes are released
through the anus, an opening at the posterior end.
What is a segmented worm?
What is a segmented worm?
What is a segmented worm?
• The setae help segmented worms move by providing a way to anchor their bodies in the soil so each segment can move the animal along.
• The most distinguishing characteristic of
segmented worms is their cylindrical bodies that are divided into ringed segments.
Segmentation supports diversified
functions
Segmentation supports diversified
functions
• In most species, this
segmentation continues internally as each
• Each segment has its own muscles, allowing shortening and lengthening of the body.
• Segmentation also allows for specialization of body tissues.
• Certain segments have modifications for functions such as sensing and reproduction.
Segmentation supports diversified
functions
• Segmented worms have simple nervous systems in which organs in anterior
segments have become modified for sensing the environment.
Nervous system
Nervous system
• Some sensory organs are sensitive to light, and eyes with lenses and retinas have
• In some species there is a brain located in an anterior segment.
Nervous system
Nervous system
• Nerve cords connect the brain to nerve centers called ganglia, located in each segment. Setae Nerve Intestine Gizzard
CropEsophagusMouth
• Segmented worms have a closed circulatory system.
Circulation and respiration
Circulation and respiration
• Blood carrying oxygen to and carbon
dioxide from body cells flow through vessels to reach all parts of the body.
• Segmented worms must live in water or in wet areas on land because they also
• Segmented worms have a complete internal digestive tract that runs the length of the
body.
Digestion and excretion
• In the gizzard, a muscular
• Undigested material and solid wastes pass out the worm’s body through the anus.
Digestion and excretion
Digestion and excretion
• Segmented worms have two nephridia in almost every
segment that collect waste products and transport them through the coelom and out of the body.
• Earthworms and leeches are hermaphrodites, producing both eggs and sperm.
Reproduction in segmented worms
Reproduction in segmented worms
• During mating, two worms exchange sperm. • Each worm forms a capsule for the eggs and
• The eggs are fertilized in the capsule, then the capsule slips off the worm and is left behind in the soil.
Reproduction in segmented worms
Reproduction in segmented worms
• Bristleworms and their relatives have separate sexes and reproduce sexually.
Reproduction in segmented worms
• Usually eggs and sperm are released into the seawater, where fertilization takes place.
Reproduction in segmented worms
Reproduction in segmented worms
• Bristleworm larvae hatch in the sea and become part of the plankton.
• The phylum Annelida includes three classes: class Oligochaeta, earthworms; class
Polychaeta, bristleworms and their relatives; and class Hirudinea, leeches.
Diversity of Segmented Worms
• Earthworms are the most well-known
annelids because they can be seen easily by most people.
Earthworms
Earthworms
Earthworms
Earthworms
Mouth
Crop
Gizzard
Setae
Nephridia
Circulatory system
• The class Polychaeta includes bristleworms and their relatives—fanworms, lug worms, plumed worms, and sea mice.
Bristleworms and their relatives
• Most body segements of a polychaete have many setae, hence the name. Polychaete means “many bristles”.
Bristleworms and their relatives
Bristleworms and their relatives
• Parapodia also function in gas exchange.
Bristleworms and their relatives
Bristleworms and their relatives
• A polychaete has a head with
• Leeches are segmented worms with flattened bodies and usually no setae.
Leeches
Leeches
• Unlike earthworms, many species are
• Front and rear suckers enable leeches to attach themselves to their hosts.
Leeches
• The saliva of the leech contains chemicals that act as an anesthetic.
Leeches
Leeches
• Other chemicals prevent the blood from clotting.
• Fossil records show that mollusks lived in great numbers as long as 500 million years ago.
• Gastropod, bivalve, and cephalopod fossils have been found in Precambrian deposits.
Origins of Mollusks and Segmented
Worms
• Annelids probably evolved in the sea,
perhaps from larvae of ancestral flatworms.
Origins of Mollusks and Segmented Worms
• Tubes constructed by polychaetes are the most common fossils of this phylum.
• Some of these tubes appear in the fossil record as early as 540 million years ago.
Origins of Mollusks and Segmented
Worms
Why must segmented worms live in a moist environment?
Question 1
Answer
Segmented worms must live in or near water because they exchange gases directly through their moist skin.
During mating, earthworms exchange _____.
Question 2
D. larvae
C. capsules containing both sperm and eggs B. sperm
A. eggs
Using this figure,
give the reason why you would
The anterior portion of an organism would
logically include the brain, as well as the
initial parts of a gut, like the esophagus and crop (the esophagus and crop are necessary to the
Which organism would likely get the most use from a gizzard, an earthworm or a leech?
Question 4
Answer
A gizzard grinds organic matter into small pieces so the nutrients in the food can be absorbed. Since a leech’s food is liquid
(blood), the earthworm would use a gizzard the most, to grind the food and soil it
ingests.
Earthworms are considered to be ______.
Question 5
D. grazers
C. filter feeders B. parasites
A. predators
The answer is D, grazers.
• Mollusks have bilateral symmetry, a coelom, and a digestive tract with two openings. Many also have shells.
Mollusks
• Bivalve mollusks have paired shells, called valves, and are filter feeders. They have no radula. Clams and scallops are bivalves.
Mollusks
• Cephalopods have tentacles with suckers, beaklike jaws, a mouth with a radula, and a closed circulatory system. Cephalopods
• The phylum Annelida includes the
earthworms, bristleworms, and their relatives, and leeches. Annelida are bilaterally
symmetrical and have a coelom and two body openings; some have larvae that look like the larvae of mollusks. Their bodies are
cylindrical and segmented.
Segmented Worms
• Earthworms have complex digestive,
• Bristleworms and their relatives are mostly marine species. They have many setae and parapodia that are used for crawling along.
Segmented Worms
• Leeches are flattened, segmented worms. Most are aquatic parasites.
• Fossil remains of mollusks show that they
first lived over 500 million years ago. Fossil records show that segmented worms first
Question 1
With the exception of slugs, all mollusks that are slow-moving or sessile have shells. Why?
Shells provide organisms with a place to hide that is always near them, since they cannot quickly escape a predator.
Question 2
Why is a closed circulatory system more efficient than an open circulatory system?
A closed circulatory system is more efficient because blood is transported entirely in closed vessels that can reach deep into the organism’s tissues and provide efficient gas exchange. In an open circulatory system, tissues farthest from the open spaces containing blood are not so likely to be reached for efficient gas exchange.
Question 3
Why do scientists consider cephalopods to be the most recently evolved of all mollusks?
Answer
Cephalopods possess the most complex structures of all mollusks, such as complex eyes, complex brains, closed circulatory systems and feet that have evolved into complex structures like arms and tentacles.
Question 4
Why are mollusks considered to be excellent index fossils?
Answer
Mollusks are generally well preserved in the fossil record, abundant, easy to recognize, and widely distributed geographically.
Question 5
Which of the following is NOT a food source for humans and why?
A. abalones B. octopuses
C. ammonites D. conches
The answer is C. Ammonites are not a food source for any organism, because they are extinct.
Question 6
How does a leech benefit from the chemicals in its saliva that prevent clots from forming?
Answer
Question 7
What is the function of parapodia?
Answer
Polychaetes use parapodia for swimming, crawling, and for gas exchange.
Question 8
Why do annelids have such a limited fossil record?
Answer
The fossil record for segmented worms is limited because segmented worms have almost no hard body parts from which fossils could develop.
Question 9
What is the function of setae?
Answer
Question 10
Which of the following features do annelids NOT share with mollusks?
A. coelom
B. bilateral symmetry
C. digestive tract with two openings D. segmented bodies
Photo Credits
Photo Credits
• General Biololgical Inc. • Digital Stock
• Joey Jacques • Corbis
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