Life Habits
The knobbed whelk lives subtidally and is migratory, alternating between deep and shallow water, depending on the time of year.
During the weather extremes of the summer and winter months, these sea snails live in deep water, at depths of up to 48 m. In the milder weather of the spring and fall they live in shallow water, on near-shore or intertidal mud flats and sand flats.
On the shallow-water mud flats whelks prey on oysters, clams, and other marine bivalves. They wedge a bivalve open using the edge of their shell, and insert their long proboscis to eat the flesh of their victim. They rasp at the flesh using their radula, a rough tongue-like organ that has thousands of tiny denticles (tooth-like protrusions).
Read more about this topic: Knobbed Whelk
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or habits:
“We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels’ food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and ... powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)