Sea snail is a common name for snails that normally live in saltwater- marine gastropod molluscs. (The taxonomic class Gastropoda also includes snails that live in other habitats, i.e. land snails and freshwater snails.)
Sea snails are marine gastropods with shells. Those marine gastropods with no shells, or only internal shells, are variously known by other common names, including sea slug, sea hare, nudibranch, etc.
Many sea snails are edible and are exploited as food sources by humans.
Diversity within sea snails is enormous. Many very different clades of gastropods are either dominated by, or consist exclusively of, sea snails. Because of this great variability, generalization about the feeding, reproduction, habitat, or other traits of sea snails is not possible. Instead, individual clades, families, genera, or species must be assessed.
Read more about Sea Snail: Shells, Anatomy, Human Uses, Use By Other Animals, Definition, Cultural References, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sea and/or snail:
“Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The snail in his museum
wears his mother all day,
he hides his mysterious bottom
as if it were rotten fruit.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)