Life Habits
The members of Odostomia are ectoparasites on other molluscs, and polychaetes. First they pierce the body wall with the buccal stylet and then feed on them by sucking blood with their buccal pump. They have become a pest of oysters, mussels, scallops and slipper limpets. Most of the Odostomia species are host-specific, only a few are not. Odostomia scalaris MacGillivray, 1843 is an ectoparasite on a wide range of hosts but especially known as a pest of mussels. Odostomia turrita Hanley, 1844 has been found on the European lobster Homarus gammarus (Linnaeus, 1758).
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